The Trump Admin’s Fossil Fuels Decisions Are Taking Us Backward | Opinion

No matter who’s in the White House, most Americans can agree on one thing: our leaders should put the health and safety of our communities—especially our kids—first. But the Trump administration’s recent decisions on fossil fuels are endangering our country, and the rest of the world.

Here on the Gulf Coast, we’ve seen the damage caused by the petrochemical industry—including polluted air and water, oil spills, more intense hurricanes and floods, rising energy costs, and other heartbreaking impacts on our children’s health. It’s already been devastating, and now the Trump administration is doubling down on its fossil fuel agenda that will only leave us suffering.

Trump’s Department of Energy (DOE)—run by a gas industry CEO—finally responded to over 100,000 comments submitted on its LNG exports studies from last year. Instead of listening to the public, this response just buries the truth and clears the way for even more exports. Trump has already handed out approvals and extensions for multiple LNG projects, including Golden Pass, Delfin, and Commonwealth LNG. He’s even pushed for a fast-tracked deep-water port for more exports.

We aren’t making up the impacts of this dangerous expansion. Numerous reports and even former President Joe Biden‘s DOE proved that liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and their facilities release deadly pollution, raise energy prices, displace clean energy globally, and could cause disasters, like the explosion at the Freeport plant, due to outdated regulations. And instead of fixing those regulations, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is trying to rewrite them in favor of cost savings for industry, not safety for the public.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency just made it easier for companies to delay or avoid pollution rules that protect our air and water. The Department of the Interior is also asking the public which environmental safeguards they should scrap—while people all across the country are already living with toxic air and contaminated water.

Trump hasn’t stopped there—the administration and its allies in Congress have announced that they intend to expand reckless drilling in our oceans, while also rolling back the safety measures put in place to safeguard our waters, marine life, and coastal communities from the harms of development.

These short-sighted decisions on fossil fuels are part of Trump’s Unleashing American Energy executive order. But this isn’t about American energy independence. It’s about further enriching the wealthy—the corporate polluters who bought access to Trump by giving millions to his campaign—while Americans are left to deal with the consequences: dirty air to breathe, unsafe drinking water, rising bills, and a climate crisis spinning out of control.

Our elected officials have given untrustworthy fossil fuel companies far too much access to the places we know and love, all for the sake of making more money and gaining more power. As a mom, a frontline leader, and an advocate for environmental justice living in Sulphur, La., I refuse to stay quiet while our government sells out our health and well-being just to benefit a handful of politicians and fossil fuel billionaires.

Will our leaders do their job of protecting our communities, or will they continue doing the bidding of a handful of CEOs? It’s becoming clearer every day which side they’re on.

Roishetta Ozane is the founder of Vessel Project of Louisiana, a small mutual aid and environmental justice organization.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.