The Trump administration is outlining plans to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean, touting the new strategy as an example of President Trump’s environmental credentials in the run-up to the election.
“Some want to ban the use of plastics altogether, just as we know in the field of energy some would like to solve global emissions concerns by banning every fossil fuel,” said Mark Menezes, the Energy Department’s deputy secretary.
“In both cases, they’re assuming we must sacrifice economic and material progress in order to be environmentally responsible,” Menezes added. “But we reject that notion and instead have chosen to embrace the power of American innovation.”
The Trump administration unveiled Monday a sweeping strategy to combat marine litter globally, including plastic pollution in the ocean. Speaking during an event in Florida, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the strategy helps advance “one of the Trump administration’s top environmental priorities.”
Around 11 billion to 28 billion pounds of trash end up in the ocean each year, harming marine life and economies, Wheeler said. Early next month, the EPA will announce the first national recycling goals in the United States, he added.
Menezes also announced new Energy Department awards for researchers working to better map and monitor the oceans and to produce clean, drinkable water from salt water.
The announcement in Florida is the latest push from the Trump administration to boost its environmental credentials in recent weeks, with a special appeal to key swing states, such as Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The White House has sought to tout its work on environmental issues other than climate change.
Democrats, environmentalists, and other critics say the effort is disingenuous. They point to the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine Obama-era environmental regulations dealing with greenhouse gas emissions and air and water pollution.
Nonetheless, just last week, Trump signed two environment-related executive orders. The first put some federal muscle behind his commitment that the U.S. would join a global effort to try to plant 1 trillion trees in the next decade.
The second order established a “subcabinet” to focus on water infrastructure, but environmentalist critics say the executive order prioritizes the demands of farm interests in the West.
In September, also in Florida, Trump announced he would extend a ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and expand the prohibitions to Florida’s Atlantic coast, Georgia, and South Carolina. Just a few weeks later, under pressure from vulnerable North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, Trump extended the drilling prohibitions to include the North Carolina and Virginia coastlines.
The Trump administration’s new marine litter plan focuses on improving efforts to recycle plastics, in partnership with companies, rather than putting prohibitions on single-use plastics. The strategy also gives the White House another way to flex its muscle toward China, which is one of five Asian countries responsible for more than half of the pollution in the oceans.
Wheeler touted his recent visit to a recycling facility being constructed in Erie, Pennsylvania. Only 7% of plastics entering landfills are currently recycled, Wheeler added.
“While the U.S. is not the driver of the marine plastics problem, we intend to drive the solutions,” Menezes said.
