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pollution
Tariffs Should Be a Scalpel, Not a Sledgehammer
While tariffs can be a tool for positive change, they need to be used alongside investments and strong environmental protections in our own country.
Jan 26, 2025
During the campaign and in the months since the election, President Donald Trump spoke about tariffs—a tax on imports—as a tool to achieve everything from “bringing back” manufacturing jobs to the Midwest to acquiring Greenland. A tariff policy that delivers good jobs and a better quality of life to working families is possible. But it must be thoughtful and work with other policies that prioritize innovation, public health, and sustainability. Under this administration’s current approach, working families risk paying more for goods we need every day while suffering higher levels of pollution.
Tariffs are a tool for compliance and can be effective in enforcing human rights, labor, and environmental protections around the world. For instance, tariffs can make it more expensive for American companies and consumers to purchase goods made in countries that choose to produce goods more cheaply than American competitors because they allow factories to dump their waste in local waterways. A pollution-linked tariff would either nudge factories in a foreign country to compete more fairly by following the same environmental rules or nudge American consumers to buy from American manufacturers who do follow those rules.
Unfettered free trade promoted by U.S. leaders for decades sent our jobs abroad, shed key industries vital to our economic security, and worsened the environment around the world. Carefully applied, tariffs are one way to help rectify these errors.
Recently, former President Joe Biden’s lead trade negotiator announced that her office would investigate Nicaragua’s human and labor rights abuses to determine if the U.S. can put a “Section 301” tariff on Nicaraguan goods. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 lets the U.S. government impose tariffs for production practices and policies in other countries that make trade unfair. In her statement, former Ambassador Katherine Tai said that the Nicaraguan government undermines fair competition by repressing its people. To put it simply, because there is little respect for workers, human rights, and the rule of law, goods can be made more cheaply in Nicaragua than they would be made in countries that abide by high-road standards. While this is the first time Section 301 tariffs have been used in this way, these tariffs could be more widely deployed to address harmful or hostile production practices worldwide. For example, countries with highly toxic and pollution-intensive industries could also be targeted.
While tariffs can be a tool for positive change, they need to be used alongside investments and strong environmental protections in our own country. Together, this could position the U.S. as a leader in modern manufacturing. Additionally, as a significant purchaser of goods, our government can keep those billions circulating in our own economy.
Tariffs can raise the price of imported goods if the companies importing those goods pass the extra cost onto the consumer. Given that corporate profits and CEO compensation are at an all-time high, there is no reason to think importers would pass up an opportunity to increase their margins. So if U.S. producers do not increase output to compete more aggressively against imported products with marked-up prices, consumers will face higher prices. Heightened costs to consumers are more likely when the tariffs target a variety of goods from many countries. With so many working families already facing a cost of living crisis, we have to counter potential price increases by making new investments in manufacturing.
When tariffs encourage domestic production to meet a gap in demand, policies also need to ensure that U.S. manufacturers are held to high standards. Increased production at a facility that is leaking toxic waste into the local water supply will place the community around that factory in greater danger—and allowing a facility with a history of safety violations to increase operations places the workers there at risk. We don’t have to choose between a productive manufacturing sector, clean air and water, and good jobs. Tariffs need to be accompanied by strong commitments that our factories meet high environmental protection standards, worker safety, and other safeguards.
Unfettered free trade promoted by U.S. leaders for decades sent our jobs abroad, shed key industries vital to our economic security, and worsened the environment around the world. Carefully applied, tariffs are one way to help rectify these errors.
But as the Center for American Progress notes, President Trump’s deployment of tariffs as a cudgel—an arbitrarily imposed 10% tariff on Chinese imports and a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico—would undermine sincere efforts to reform global trade policy to work for working families and fenceline communities. It would instigate tit-for-tat actions from trade partners buying key American products. This kind of retaliation then reduces the market share for American businesses and jeopardizes the stability of our hard-won jobs. Our top three export destinations are Canada, Mexico, and China, the countries Trump targets. Plus, signals from the Trump administration that it will claw back investments in American factories and roll back environmental protections will place the cost of tariffs on the health and pocketbooks of families.
We stand to lose a lot if we build our tariff policy on bluster alone. What we stand to win could change the trajectory of rural America and our economy.
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Hearing for Trump DOT Pick Highlights Conflicts of Interests, Push for More Auto Pollution
"Will Duffy use his power to protect the bottom line of his former corporate clients by scrapping basic transparency protections at the expense of everyday Americans?" asked one critic.
Jan 15, 2025
U.S. senators on Wednesday held confirmation hearings for numerous nominees for positions in President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet, including two who would oversee pollution rules—and climate action groups warned that both men would face major conflicts of interest due to their work for the very industries they would be tasked with regulating.
As Common Dreamsreported, energy secretary Chris Wright is a longtime denier of the climate crisis who's made his fortune in the fossil fuel industry, and as lawmakers were hearing from him Wednesday, transportation secretary nominee Sean Duffy was testifying before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on his experience and political views.
The hearing, said government watchdog Accountable.US, "failed to resolve concerns around a major conflict of interest" tied to Duffy due to his past lobbying for the same airlines that are currently suing the Department of Transportation (DOT).
Duffy, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin, became a lobbyist for BGR Government Affairs in 2019, after serving in the House. He and the firm were hired by "Partnership for Open Skies," which includes as its members American, United, and Delta airlines, to lobby for a "U.S. open skies policy."
Those airlines all joined a lawsuit against the DOT last May, challenging the Biden administration's rule to "protect airline passengers from surprise junk fees when purchasing a ticket."
"DOT needs leadership that prioritizes strong safety standards and environmental justice—not someone with limited qualifications to address these urgent challenges."
"Sean Duffy's lobbying work for the same airlines now suing to overturn a Transportation Department rule against surprise junk fees poses a major conflict," said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable. "Will Duffy use his power to protect the bottom line of his former corporate clients by scrapping basic transparency protections at the expense of everyday Americans? Duffy is just one of several Trump nominees with similar conflicts of interest that confirm the incoming administration intends to take care of wealthy corporate special interests first and working people last."
At the hearing, said Accountable, Duffy failed to answer questions about his past lobbying and his comments in 2022 about the DOT's push to investigate Southwest Airlines' holiday scheduling crisis.
"Southwest will fix this… [Secretary of Transportation] Pete Buttigieg never will," said Duffy at the time.
Accountable said the nominee's position begged the question, "If Duffy had been the transportation secretary during this crisis, what, if anything, would he have done to protect consumers? Or would he have solely relied on market forces to determine Southwest's penalty, allowing the company to avoid accountability while leaving current and future passengers without restitution or support?"
Kelsey Crane of the climate group Earthworks warned that Duffy's "complete disregard for climate science and disdain for clean energy is deeply concerning."
The DOT plays a "critical role in regulating methane emissions from oil and gas pipelines and permitting oil and gas export terminals that threaten public health and the climate," said Crane, but similar to Wright, Duffy has dismissed the warnings of "climate alarmists" and suggested climate science is an "agenda of control."
"Frontline communities are already suffering the effects of climate pollution and inadequate oversight," said Crane. "DOT needs leadership that prioritizes strong safety standards and environmental justice—not someone with limited qualifications to address these urgent challenges. Sean Duffy's close ties to the oil and gas industry and denial of clear climate science raises serious doubts about his ability to safeguard public health and the climate."
In his post-congressional career as a Fox News host, Duffy used his platform to attack Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards aimed at expanding access to clean vehicles, said the Sierra Club's Katherine García—evidence of his "dangerous and misinformed beliefs."
"We need a secretary of transportation that understands the reality that transportation is the leading source of climate emissions and is committed to clean transportation solutions that will help protect our communities," said García, the director of the group's Clean Transportation for All campaign. "Sean Duffy has no business running DOT and we urge the Senate to reject him."
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'Insatiable Greed': Richest 1% Have Already Burned Through Their Carbon Limit for 2025
"The super-rich continue to squander humanity's chances with their lavish lifestyles, polluting stock portfolios and pernicious political influence. This is theft—pure and simple."
Jan 10, 2025
An Oxfam analysis published Friday shows that the richest 1% of the global population has already blown through its global carbon budget for 2025—just 10 days into the New Year. The figures, which arrive amid catastrophic fires in Los Angeles that may turn out to be the costliest in U.S. history, highlight the disproportionate role of the ultra-wealthy in fueling a climate emergency that is causing devastation around the world.
Oxfam calculates that in order to keep critical climate goals in reach, each person on Earth must have a CO2 footprint of roughly 2.1 tons per year or less. On average, each person in the global 1% is burning through 76 tons of planet-warning carbon dioxide annually—or 0.209 per day—meaning it took them just over a week to reach their CO2 limit for the year.
By contrast, the average person in the poorest 50% of humanity has an annual carbon footprint of 0.7 tons per year—well within the 2.1-ton budget compatible with a livable future.
"The future of our planet is hanging by a thread," Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam International's climate change policy lead, said in a statement Friday. "The margin for action is razor-thin, yet the super-rich continue to squander humanity's chances with their lavish lifestyles, polluting stock portfolios and pernicious political influence."
"This is theft—pure and simple―a tiny few robbing billions of people of their future to feed their insatiable greed," Dabi added.
"Rich polluters must be made to pay for the havoc they're wreaking on our planet."
Oxfam's new analysis came as the Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record and "the first calendar year that the average global temperature exceeded 1.5°C above its pre-industrial level."
"All of the internationally produced global temperature datasets show that 2024 was the hottest year since records began in 1850," Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement. "Humanity is in charge of its own destiny, but how we respond to the climate challenge should be based on evidence. The future is in our hands—swift and decisive action can still alter the trajectory of our future climate."
Oxfam called on governments to move urgently to curb the emissions of the rich, including by implementing wealth taxes, banning private jets and superyachts, and imposing strict new regulations on polluting companies.
"Governments need to stop pandering to the richest," Dabi said Friday. "Rich polluters must be made to pay for the havoc they're wreaking on our planet. Tax them, curb their emissions, and ban their excessive indulgences—private jets, superyachts, and the like. Leaders who fail to act are effectively choosing complicity in a crisis that threatens the lives of billions."
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