Trumps Council on Environmental Quality has no members at all

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-environmental-council-no-members-9150716d23da/


Trump’s Council on Environmental Quality has no members at all
The administration is required by law to have such a panel.
Josh Israel
Aug 25, 2017, 2:26 pm



It would not be an overstatement to say that President Donald Trump has placed the environment at the bottom of priority list. While his administration aggressively pursues its rollback of environmental protections and climate action, other key aspects of federal environmental policy have been completely ignored. Seven months into his presidency, Trump has yet to appoint a single member to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), despite the fact that he is required by law to appoint a council to create and recommend policies to improve of the quality of the environment.

After noticing that its website showed no council members, ThinkProgress reached out to the council to ask for a list of current members. Told that this information was not available, ThinkProgress filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the current list of names. On Friday, the council’s FOIA public liaison responded to the request by noting that there were “no documents responsive to {the} request.” He explained that this is because there are currently no members of the council at all.

The National Environmental Policy Act, passed by Congress in 1969 and signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon, established the council as part of the executive office of the president. The law mandates “three members who shall be appointed by the president to serve at his pleasure, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.”


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Though Trump ran on a platform of climate science denial, as a candidate he promised that he would “conserve our beautiful natural habitats” and “ensure clean air and clean water for all of our people.” To date, his environmental policy has been almost entirely one of deregulation. And by not having any council at all to recommend environmentally sound policies, the administration continues to display its profound lack of concern for environmental issues.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration moved the Council on Environmental Quality out of its long-time office space and revoked the council’s guidance on how to include climate change during environmental reviews, moves the council’s former managing director called “short-sighted and really difficult to understand.”

Trump has left numerous other key positions for environmental protection and other core government functions vacant, including science adviser.