CDC Climate Program Budget - $10 Million; Spending To Date On Golf At Merde-A-Lago - $65 Million
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The CDC’s climate program wasn’t a top priority in the Obama administration, the report makes clear – although Obama did try to double the budget of the agency, only to have the increase red-lined by the Republican-controlled Congress. The Trump administration, on the other hand, has done everything it can to kill the initiative. It limps along now, with a budget of less than $10 million. As Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, one of the few lawmakers who promoted the program, says in the report, “That somebody would go out of their way to pick off the only $10 million to spend on climate preparedness for health effects is kind of astonishing.”
When Trump rolls back air pollution rules, or opens up protected areas to commercial fishing, it’s easy to see the political constituency he’s trying to suck up to. But who is the constituency for letting people roast to death in overheated homes in Phoenix?
To put the CDC’s $10 million climate budget in perspective, Trump’s travel to Mar-a-Lago has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $64 million. This is the America we live in: We spend six times more flying Trump down to Florida to play golf than we do to protect 330 million Americans from the deadly health impacts of climate change.
Given the crazy shit that is going on in the world right now, and the scale of Trump’s crimes and lies, the failure of the CDC to do anything to protect Americans from the climate crisis might seem like a distant priority. But what astonishes me, and what this report makes clear, is how little effort and how little money it would take to save lives. We are not talking about the failure to find a cure for cancer here. We’re talking about a government that doesn’t care enough to take the basic steps to protect the lives of people from the most urgent and deadly public-health emergency of our time. Like COVID, the climate crisis doesn’t care if you are black or white, straight or gay, a supporter of Trump or Biden – if it gets the chance, it will kill you.
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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cdc-climate-program-failures-1017391/
