JANE FONDA IS BACK IN THE ACTIVISM GAME

Jane Fonda is not just Grace from “Grace and Frankie.” (For the record, Lily Tomlin is not just Frankie from that television series, but that’s a different article.) 

Fonda recently moved from California to Washington, D.C. to pursue a string of weekly protests. The subject of these protests? The future of the planet if we don’t do something about climate change. 

These protests have been coined “Fire Drill Fridays.” Each Friday for the last four weeks, Fonda has been taken into custody and even spent the night in jail on Nov. 1. Activists joining this protest are urged to wear something red and bring a sign. The group then enters one of the Senate buildings on Capitol Hill (where protesting is not allowed), and chants.  

On Tuesday,  Fonda was asked in a CNN interview where she stands on President Donald Trump’s impeachment troubles. She took the opportunity to say that Trump is not a very environmentally friendly person, calling him an “oil president.”

While being seen as an environmental hazard is not an impeachable offense, Fonda has a point in calling President Trump an “oil president.” Upon taking office in January 2017, he disclosed many plans for environmental policy change. So many, in fact, that National Geographic has a running list of legislation that affects the environment.  

Early in 2019, Trump rolled back some of the regulations and safety measures for offshore drilling. A new set of rules was enacted in 2010 after the BP explosion and resulting leak that dumped over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The Trump administration has reduced safety requirements for testing of “blowout preventers” used in oil drilling. There also has been a dramatic increase in fracking and other, unethical oil practices since.

People should remember the outrage surrounding the explosion and pollution in 2010. The Deepwater Horizon blowout was not an event to be taken lightly and this new policy change should not be, either. 

Trump has also signed two executive orders that affect the checkpoints oil companies must go through in order to construct pipelines.

The first of these two orders asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to change part of the federal Clean Water Act. Previously, oil companies working on projects that might contaminate water had to get state-level approval and permission. This change would allow those companies to continue construction without state-level approval.

The second executive order allows the president himself to “issue, deny, or amend” permits for pipelines that cross international borders. This power used to lay with the Secretary of State, so, good-bye to that check and balance, I guess? 

All this change in oil policy is part of Trump’s “Energy Dominance” initiative, which has a goal of increasing domestic energy production. From an economical point of view, it is clear where he is coming from.

However, as Fonda once said, “You don’t have to choose between the environment, and the economy. That is a false choice.”  

Cutting back on crude oil exploration, and use, is going to help the environment exponentially. The collecting of oil alone is hard on the planet, and that’s not even getting into the heavier issues like emissions.

It is reassuring to know that we have influencial people, like Fonda, fighting the good fight.