Trump officials buried report meant to help farmers — because it mentioned climate change
The USDA refused to release a report because it didn’t reflect the Trump administration’s position on climate change.
Trump officials buried a report that would have helped farmers deal with the effects of climate change, Politico reported on Thursday.
Officials at the Department of Agriculture (USDA) refused to release a 2017 report that details how the department can help farmers understand, adapt to and minimize the effects of climate change.
The 33-page report was making its way through the approval process when a Trump appointee decided the report would not be made public, according to Politico.
The science-based plan acknowledges that climate change is affecting farmers and ranchers. It also includes the goal of determining “the science that USDA needs to pursue over the next five to eight years for the department to meet the needs of the nation.”
A recent Politico investigation found Trump officials have stopped the release of other scientific reports that mention the effects of climate change.
The news of the latest buried report broke the same morning the USDA’s top scientist was scheduled to testify before the Senate Agriculture Committee.
By burying the report, the Trump administration seems willing to hurt farmers and ranchers just to stay true to its anti-science agenda.
“The intent is to try to suppress a message — in this case, the increasing danger of human-caused climate change,” Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, told Politico in June. “Who loses out? The people, who are already suffering the impacts of sea level rise and unprecedented super storms, droughts, wildfires and heat waves.”
Burying a climate change report is not the only way Trump is hurting farmers. Trump’s trade wars have devastated farmers across the country and have caused bankruptcies to skyrocket.
“We spent 40 years developing this trade relationship with China and in one fell swoop, it was all taken away,” Bret Davis, a fourth-generation soybean farmer, told Axios in May.
Trump’s trade policies hurt farmers in the near-term, but the administration’s refusal to deal with climate change endangers farmers in the long run. No wonder farmers say Trump is turning his back on them.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
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