Theodore Roosevelt and Sierra Club founder John Muir in Yosemite
Score
Harris + 6 Trump -5
Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as the farmer behaves with reference to his own children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for his children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing of a nation.
Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism, August 31, 1910
Theodore Roosevelt’s name is synonymous with the cause of conservation in American history. In both action and word, he called the nation to value and preserve the unique beauty of the American wilderness and to husband our natural resources for future generations. The more recent cause of environmental health and safety regulation sprung from this ideal as well as his advocacy of healthy working and living conditions. However, he differed with Sierra Club founder John Muir in that TR believed sustainable development could occur consistent with the conservation of those resources. The struggle to reconcile these two ideals still resonates in today’s environmental politics and policy and thus, in this election.
Climate Change
The Biden Administration made the challenge of climate change the centerpiece of its domestic and foreign policy. Its (unfortunately misnamed) Inflation Reduction Act invested $380 billion in new clean energy projects and technology while continuing oil & gas leasing on federal lands (see this previous post). Meanwhile, the EPA increased the price for purposes of costing carbon emissions. To reclaim our legitimacy on the issue overseas, President Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Accord and appointed John Kerry as our first ambassador at large on climate change. These are just a few of the administration’s initiatives that put America at the forefront of addressing this challenge.
Donald Trump could not be more different. He has ridiculed the very concept of climate change, though he did not actively prevent state and private clean energy projects while President. The only saving grace of his neglect of the issue was his unwillingness to sacrifice American economic security to carbon reduction goals to which China, Russia and the rest of the world were equally uncommitted.
Both candidates, however, have failed to coherently address the one climate issue which should be non-partisan – climate adaptation. Most scientists now admit the world will not reduce carbon emissions enough to avoid the 1.5 -2 C increase in world temperatures necessary to avoid the effects of global warming. Meanwhile, the increasing number of wildfires here in the West and Hurricanes Helene and Milton have strained the resources of the Federal Energy Management agency to the limit (see this article from the Council on Foreign Relations).
The American people deserve a climate adaptation policy that prepares the nation for all of the changes we face in the future. It should address issues as diverse as land use,agricultural policy, housing affordability and potential population relocation as well as the impact on American foreign policy. It is not climate defeatism to start pivoting our focus to this challenge. Unfortunately, the Biden Administration seems to believe so, simply because they have not featured it in their policy.
The good news about Vice President Harris is that she will undoubtedly continue the current arc of the Biden climate policy. The bad news is that she has advocated more radical approaches in the past that would hobble the American economy. Thus, she deserves only a plus 2 on the issue while Trump continues to deserve a minus 2 on it.
Parks and Public Lands
An inscription from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt on the Roosevelt Arch at the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park declares the park to be “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people” . The same goes for all of our national parks, monuments and public lands, which stand as a common heritage of all Americans. Indeed, they have been a model of conservation for the entire world.
President Biden has fully embraced this heritage. He added more than 12.5 million acres of monuments and protected lands and invested billions in land conservation efforts (see this article for more background). The Bureau of Land Management now considers conservation equally important to land development . The only drawback is the backlog of unused land locked up by the Wilderness Act, which could be released for development or joint use. (see this previous post) .
The Trump Administration was a friend of the established national parks and, for example, signed the Great American Outdoors Act appropriating billions for park infrastructure. However, he was hostile to other public land preservation, reducing the size of several established by the Obama Administration. Moreover, the Project 2025 platform prepared by former Trump officials actually advocates the repeal of the Antiquities Act that TR’s used to preserve the Grand Canyon and authorized Biden’s preservations.
At the same time, both Vice President Harris and Trump have strangely advocated the construction of housing on public lands despite the fact that the vast majority of it is located in the Western states. Governor Walz qualified her position during the Vice-presidential debate, saying a sale of lands was unnecessary. Nevertheless, the past policies of The Biden administration still earn Harris a plus 2 on the issue while Trump receives a minus 1.5 .
Environmental Regulation
The Biden environment program began by prioritizing climate change and environmental justice initiatives. In addition to reinstating many of the rules abolished by the Trump Admini8stration, the Biden EPA issued a series of regulations to limit the use of and clean up PFAS chemicals found in drinking water, packaging and other consumer goods (see this article). It also acted to protect workers from increasing heat risk by issuing the first outdoor and indoor heat standard (see this article).
These rules address important health and safety issues, but also push the boundaries of agency jurisdiction. While the Supreme Court just refused to issue a stay of an EPA rule to require power plants to capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2037, the litigation over the issue continues in the lower courts. One of its PFAS rules also is in serious legal question after the Supreme Courts’ Loper Bright decision (see this article). The next administration must commit to protect necessary health, safety and environmental regulation by reviewing and updating relevant legislative authorization in light of the Loper Bright decision (see the Draining the Swamp post in this series).
Vice President Harris clearly supports this kind of health and safety regulation, but it is unclear whether she has the will or the interest in working with Congress toward new legislation to better define agency jurisdiction. She thus receives a plus 2 in this area. Meanwhile, Trump has shifted to a more hostile attitude to such regulation than he previously exhibited during his presidency. It is possible that Robert F Kennedy, Jr.’s historic environmentalism will moderate the influence of Trump’s new corporate allies, and so he receives just a minus 1.5 score.
Conclusion
In the last century, TR’s conservation and environmental ideals have moved from being a novel proposal to becoming a centerpiece of American public policy. Their implementation, however, remains controversial. The next president must find a way to use the common blessings of our national beauty and our respect for the health of our fellow Americans to unify the nation and reignite our hope for the future.
