Trump Is Desperately Trying To Greenwash His Record Ahead Of The Election

During a May 2018 roundtable with more than two dozen outdoor sporting and conservation organizations, after more than a year of leading the Trump administrations fossil fuel-centric energy dominance push, then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke promised to make a grand pivot away from energy development and toward conservation.

Zinkes decree was an admission that the agency had fallen short on its stewardship mandate, and an acknowledgment that Americans wanted better protection of public lands and waters.

And yet, Zinkes grand pivot never came . Instead, the administration plowed ahead with its unprecedented assault on environmental protections at least 100 regulatory rollbacks , according to a New York Times tracker and treated the federal estate as little more than a place for industry allies to extract resources.

The Trump administration has worked to weaken safeguards for some 35 million acres of public land nearly 1,000 times more than it has protected and has stacked environmental agencies with former industry lobbyists and lawyers, many with histories of contempt for the very agencies they now lead. And it has continued to cheer on the fossil fuel industry amid a rapidly worsening climate crisis.

But in the last year, President Donald Trumps campaign seems to have realized that this could cost him a second term. And instead of changing course, the president has undertaken a noticeable greenwashing campaign.

Were doing a very tough job, and not everybody knows it, Trump said in a July 2019 environment speech at the White House, a 45-minute event full of the lies and spin that have defined the current presidency. We have only America. We have only one planet Thats why, every day of my presidency, we will fight for a cleaner environment and a better quality of life for every one of our great citizens.

The following month, after skipping a Group of Seven summit meeting on climate and biodiversity, Trump boasted, Im an environmentalist and I think I know more about the environment than most people.

On Fox & Friends, President Trump denies that he has plans to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling -- he only says he's thinking about it. He also says \"I should go down as a great environmental president.\" pic.twitter.com/n6pRJyYG9g

Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) August 17, 2020","type":"rich","meta":{"author":"Bobby Lewis","author_url":"https://twitter.com/revrrlewis","cache_age":86400,"description":"On Fox & Friends, President Trump denies that he has plans to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling -- he only says he's thinking about it. 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On Fox & Friends, President Trump denies that he has plans to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling -- he only says he's thinking about it. He also says "I should go down as a great environmental president." pic.twitter.com/n6pRJyYG9g
Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) August 17, 2020

That effort to rebrand Trump as a champion on environment and conservation has only ramped up as the 2020 election draws closer. But Trumps record is clear . Much like Zinkes roundtable comments, the administrations last-ditch effort to improve the presidents image indicates its well aware his legacy is not one of stewardship.

Its like he drowned someone, put on a whistle and called himself a lifeguard, said Kate Kelly, public lands director at the Center for American Progress and a former Interior Department official during the Obama administration. Its too late. Its too late for Trump to be anything other than the most anti-conservation president in history.

The White House did not respond to a number of HuffPosts specific questions. In an email statement, spokesperson Judd Deere argued that the Paris climate accord, which Trump last November began the process of pulling the U.S. out of, shackles economies and has done nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Judd also claimed falsely that the Green New Deal, a progressive set of guiding principles to rein in greenhouse gas emissions and build climate-resilient infrastructure, would outlaw cows, cars and planes.