Trump does not like the planet. At all.
First, he installed Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA, which is the equivalent of putting Cookie Monster in charge of Keebler, then he flipped off Mother Earth by backing out of the Paris Agreement. He’s promised to remove restrictions on coal mining, and once declared Global Warming to be nothing but a hoax cooked up by the Chinese.
Now he’s found another way to screw over the planet: bring back Pebble Mine.
From ThinkProgress
Northern Dynasty, the mining concern behind the Pebble project, has had a rough few years. In 2014, the Obama EPA moved to block its plans to mine for copper and gold under the Clean Water Act, prompting the company to launch a costly court battle. Then a New York investments house announced it believes the company’s stock is effectively worth $0.00 — because even if Pebble gets approved it will be economically impossible to extract the minerals there in a profitable fashion.
Optimists, meanwhile, began pushing Northern Dynasty stock as a get-rich-quick opportunity following President Donald Trump’s election victory, in anticipation of a reversal in federal policy toward Pebble. On Friday, that prediction was proven at least partly correct: EPA head Scott Pruitt announced the agency would settle Northern Dynasty’s lawsuit, abandon Obama-era regulatory plans, and allow the company to apply for a mining permit.
Needless to say, quite a few people have issues with this proposal, and not all of them are environmentalists.
“This was a real test for President Trump, who said all the right things to sportsmen during the election,” Sportsman’s Alliance for Alaska director Scott Hed said. “Rolling back protections for Bristol Bay flies in the face of catch and release anglers, fly-rod makers, big-game hunters, and firearms manufacturers — the entire sporting spectrum. This is a direct assault on our values.”
Do you know how much of the world’s salmon comes from Bristol Bay? Half. Half of all the salmon we eat comes from there. If that mine is built, it'll only take one little spill, one little accident to turn this beautiful, and economically vital, bay into a toxic swamp.
We can’t let this happen.