The biggest environmental battles facing the Trump administration

Posted by John P. Bradford // January 8, 2017

Some flashpoints for environmental activists relating to climate change that are likely to erupt in the first few months of Donald Trumps presidency

Donald Trump is likely to face unprecedented opposition from environmental groups during his presidency as activists prepare to battle the new administration on a number of fronts across the US.

While environmentalists clashed with Barack Obama over the Keystone and Dakota Access oil pipelines, these fights could pale in comparison to the array of grievances Trump will face overwater security, fracking and climate change.

The president-elect has vowed to approve the Keystone pipeline, which Obama blocked, and very quickly resolve the Dakota Access project, currently held up by the federal government after months of protests by Native Americans. Trump has pledged to remove roadblocks to oil, gas and coal developments and threatened to end all climate and clean energy spending.

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Opposition to this agenda has already begun in earnest, following a prediction by former vice-president Al Gore that there will be a huge upsurge in environmental activism, stoked by the new administrations plans to cut science funding, remove the US from the Paris climate deal and appoint Scott Pruitt as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency an agency he has sued multiple times as Oklahoma attorney general.

350.org, an international environmental organization, pledged to make January a month of a resistance against Trumps cabinet picks. On 9 January, the organization will mobilize its chapters in all 50 states to stage protests at senators district offices. It will be the beginning of what they say will be a sustained protest throughout the year.

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In New York City in December, the Sierra Club protested Pruitts nomination by projecting an image of rising seas and the words Dont Trump the planet on to the side of the Trump Building on Wall Street. Its the opening salvo of what is likely to be a war of attrition waged by Americas largest environmental group, which has drawn in more monthly donors in the weeks since Trumps election than it has in the past four years.

If Trump keeps choosing to drag us backwards to the dirty energy of the past, he will find unfettered opposition every step of the way, said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.

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Here are some of the flashpoints for environmental activists protesting issues relating to climate change happening around the country now and likely to erupt in the first few months of Trumps presidency:

Eminent domain in Iowa

South of Standing Rock, the sprawling Dakota Access pipeline faces another dispute. Landowners in Iowa are challenging the government seizure of their land to build the pipeline.