Carper worries Delaware to suffer under Trump
Sen. Tom Carper visited Seaford last week to tour the Invista plant, and discuss his priorities for the key environmental issues he sees facing the state.
The Democrat also used the opportunity to take on President Donald Trump.
"We've had a series of Democratic and Republican administrations, really people who were stewards of the environment, committed to making sure every generation passed on a healthier planet," Carper said. "And when Donald Trump was running for president one of the things he promised was to try to get rid of EPA, and if he couldn't get rid of it to diminish its role and abilities. One of his people was talking about reducing their headcount by two-thirds."
Carper said that is of relevance in Delaware, where there is ongoing concern about air pollution that drifts in from coal-fired power plants to the north and west.
Delaware has already filed a series of lawsuits aimed at power plants beyond its borders. Because those plants are in areas where air quality meets federal standards, those facilities don't need to install costly equipment to reduce pollution. The problem, Carper said, is the smokestacks that send pollution skyward, where it ultimately impacts air quality in Delaware.
"When I was governor, I could have literally shut down the economy of the state of Delaware, literally shut it down, and we would still have been out of compliance," Carper said. "Take all the vehicles off the road, shut down all of our businesses. We would have still been out of compliance with clean air requirements, toxic air requirements, because of the movement of air across our country. There are a lot of coal-fired power plants in the midwest where they burn coal to get cheap electricity. They use these smokestacks that are like 500 feet high. They get the air emissions way up in the air so they blow out of their state and end up in in ours."
Delaware power plants have shut down aging units or installed devices that remove pollution, he said.
The EPA administers the rules within the Clean Air Act. Carper said he is especially concerned with Trump's appointment of Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general, to be the next head of the EPA.
Besides the cross-border pollution, Carper said he is equally concerned about sea level rise.
"In the state of Delaware we have a special stake in this because we're the lowest-lying state in America," Carper said. "We see, literally every day along our coast, the messages of what happens when the temperature of our planet continues to rise and the water continues to rise and encroaches on our land."
Carper said he is especially concerned with Pruitt because, as Oklahoma attorney general, he has repeatedly sued the EPA.
When he was nominated for the new position in December, Trump said Pruitt "will restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe.”
When he was nominated, Pruitt said, “the American people are tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations, and I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses.”
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Carper said that he believes for Delaware, sea level rise is "a real threat for our way of life and our ability to live here."
What the president "has called for is a massive tax cut, huge buildup in military spending, not touching Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and building a $15 billion to $25 billion wall along the border with Mexico and balancing the budget and repealing the Affordable Care Act ... You can't do all that and have a balanced budget. But in order to get even close you have to eliminate discretionary domestic spending, which is for education, for clean air, clean water and treating wastewater. The federal government is a pretty good partner with us on those fronts."
Carper said he has never seen anything like it.
"George W. Bush and I were governors together for six years and when he came to Washington a bunch of the folks in his cabinet were former governors who had experience at the state level working with federal agencies. ... The same thing with Bill Clinton."
Last week, when Trump spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, Carper laughed as he described the president's remarks.
"Donald Trump, when he started speaking, he was fine when he stayed on script and then he moved off script and he started talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger and the ratings and how his ratings on 'The Apprentice' program were better than Arnold Schwarzenegger's," Carper said. "And I thought to myself, are you kidding? At the Prayer Breakfast? We've all been talking here for like an hour about humility and love thy neighbor as thyself and he just can't get over taking a shot at Schwarzenegger. I've never seen anything like it. He can't help himself."
Contact Molly Murray at (302) 463-3334 or mmurray@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @MollyMurraytnj.