Trump Gives Speech on Environment. Meanwhile, on Earth One..

On a day that President Trump lauded his environmental record in a speech, the National Weather service issued a flood warning for the DC area, as the region continues to be affected by the climate fueled increase in extreme precipitation events.

National Weather Service, 5:36 EDT:

The National Weather Service in Sterling Virginia has extended the

* Flood Warning for…

The District of Columbia…

* Until 900 PM EDT.

* At 535 PM EDT, the District of Columbia 911 Center reported

several roads still closed due to high water. Water will continue

to recede through this evening.

* Some locations that will experience flooding include…Arlington, Fort Totten, RFK Stadium, Nationals Park, HowardUniversity, Gallaudet University, US Capitol, Anacostia, AmericanUniversity, Adams Morgan, Kenilworth, Georgetown, Mount Rainier,Fairmount Heights, Colmar Manor, Cottage City, Rock Creek, TheMall, Catholic University and National Arboretum.Recommended actionsTurn around, don`t drown when encountering flooded roads.

Most flood deaths occur in vehicles.

Excessive runoff from heavy rainfall will cause flooding of smallcreeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses aswell as other drainage areas and low lying spots.

A Flood Warning means that flooding is imminent or occurring. All interested parties should take necessary precautions immediately.

Politico:

Here is an examination of Trump’s most striking statements about his environmental record.

TRUMP: “One of the main messages of air pollution, particulate matters is six times lower here than the global average. We hear so much about what other countries and what everyone else is doing. Since 2000, our nation’s energy-related carbon emissions have declined more than any other country on earth.”
Air pollution in the U.S. has indeed plummeted since Congress last overhauled the Clean Air Act in 1990, at least judged by EPA data on several key pollutants. But that downward trend appears to have reversed itself in 2018, when greenhouse gases began rising again after falling to a 25-year low in 2017.
The Rhodium Group, an independent research group, said in May that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased by as much as 2.5 percent last year, while efforts to lessen carbon pollution by the utility industry slowed in 2018.
Trump has also flopped on clean air in general, according to an Associated Press analysisof EPA data. It shows a 15 percent increase in the number of high air pollution days in the two years of the Trump administration as compared with the last four years of the Obama administration.
That’s a setback from a long-term decline under the previous four presidents, which has led to emissions of sulfur dioxide – a component of acid rain – to fall 88 percent below 1990 levels, according to EPA data. Lead pollution in air is down 80 percent over the same period, and soot and nitrogen dioxide are down between 34 and 56 percent. Ground-level ozone, which causes smog, is down 22 percent.
But none of that is anything Trump can take credit for, his critics say.
“The quality of our air has gotten worse under this president after decades of improvement,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “Donald Trump is the worst president in U.S. history for protecting the air and our climate.”

TRUMP: “More than 100 Democrats in Congress now support the so-called Green New Deal. Their plan is estimated to cost our economy nearly $100 trillion, a number unthinkable, a number not affordable even in the best of times.”
Trump was referring to Republicans’ claims that the Green New Deal resolution, a piece of legislation pushed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives, would cost $93 trillion — a sum that would dwarf the combined economic output of every nation on Earth. But that figure was essentially pulled out of thin air, as POLITICOreported in March, and was calculated by a conservative think tank that made significant assumptions about how the plan would be implemented.
Even former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, whose think tank helped calculate the figure, has acknowledged that it’s impossible to say exactly how much the plan would cost.
“Is it billions or trillions?” he said in March. “Any precision past that is illusory.
Costs for environmental regulations are also often over estimated. One recent study cited the U.S. acid rain program, which was initially expected to cost $2.4 billion to $5 billion a year, but ultimately cost just $836 million while offering $100 billion in benefits annually.

TRUMP: “For the first time in nearly 30 years, we’re in the process of strengthening national drinking water standards to protect vulnerable children from lead and copper exposure. Something that has not been done and we’re doing it.”
The Trump administration has touted its work to reduce childhood exposure to lead, a potent neurotoxin, but has taken few concrete steps that weren’t legally mandated.
The Trump administration struggled to reconcile the need to replace millions of lead service lines around the country with the cost of doing so. EPA finally sent a proposal to the White House for review last month. EPA has said that rule will make a priority of replacing the most corrosive lines first and will require lead lines to be mapped, monitored and ultimately replaced over a 30-year period.
Late last month, the agency also finished a new rule tightening standards for lead dust on floors and window sills — a move required by court order. But environmental groups criticized the rule for not addressing requirements for tests of dust after rehabilitation.

NOT MENTIONED: Trump’s regulatory rollback of rules on power plants, vehicle efficiency and waters covered by federal law.

EPA says these three rules — which all replace stricter versions written by the Obama administration — conform to limits set by Congress while achieving environmental benefits. But even EPA’s own estimates say they do little to improve air and water quality, or could even lead to pollution increases.
“There is almost no proposed or final rule that has come out of the Trump EPA that will provide greater protection to public health, and many that would allow increases in air pollution, small or large,” Janet McCabe, former head of EPA’s air office and now assistant director of the Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute, said in a statement.
The power plant rule, called the Affordable Clean Energy rule, was officially issued on Monday and requires coal-fired power plants to consider boosting their efficiency — which EPA estimates could reduce their carbon emissions by 1.5 percent.
That’s nowhere near the scale of greenhouse gas reductions from power plants that scientists say is needed by mid-century to help the world avoid the worst effects of climate change. And critics complained that some coal-fired power plants will actually be able to increase the total amount of carbon dioxide they emit if the rule allows them to run more frequently or remain operational longer.