Budget cuts and sinking cities

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. From Palm Springs, California, I'm Janet Wilson.

National parks. EnergyStar appliances. The extreme weather database. These are among the climate, public lands and clean energy programs that the Trump administration has recently placed on the chopping block for funding cuts or outright elimination.

Tracking the changes can be dizzying. So is the range of cuts proposed for next year. Paste BN's Dinah Voyles Pulver added them up and found that President Donald Trump's proposed budget would axe more than $32 billion from agencies that monitor weather, oceans and the atmosphere, and those that protect natural and historic resources, parks and conservation lands.

The Environmental Protection Agency would lose more than half its budget, shrinking it to a level last seen when Ronald Reagan was president. The Interior Department budget, including the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Geological Survey, would be cut by almost a third, even though it's slated to take on services provided by other agencies. National parks would lose 25% of their funds.

Other environmental agency cuts range from 15% to 55%. The reductions, which must be reconciled with Congressional proposals, would come atop mass layoffs and other reductions already imposed by the Department of Government Efficiency.

The president's supporters say such cuts are crucial if the nation is ever going to pay down its $36 trillion debt. But climate scientists, public health experts and open space advocates say vital programs and protections could be lost that would take years to restore.

Ranking Democrats vowed to fight back. “Trump’s budget ‒ bought and paid for by his fossil fuel megadonors ‒ would be an unmitigated disaster for everyone except the looters and polluters,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Sinking feeling. The nation's big cities are sinking, according to new satellite data, and not just on the coasts, where sea level rise is a concern, but in the interior, reports Paste BN's Doyle Rice. Houston leads the nation for most ground lost the fastest, with more than 40% of its area dropping about 1/5 inch per year, and 12% sinking at twice that rate.

But in every city studied, from Boston to Indianapolis to San Diego, at least 20% of the urban area is sinking – and in 25 of 28 cities, at least 65% is dropping. The leading cause of the land subsidence? "Massive ongoing groundwater extraction," say the study authors, though other forces are at work in some places. The study "offers critical information for urban planning, infrastructure adaptation, and hazard preparedness," its authors say.

Monumental. In a case that may be tailor made for the U.S. Supreme Court, a conservative Texas think tank and a family gold miner have sued to eliminate the new Chuckwalla National Monument, created by President Joe Biden. The lawsuit argues that off roading and mining will be eliminated in the 624,000 acre preserve in the California desert - even though both are protected in Biden's proclamation.

But the lawsuit could be a prelude to a high court showdown, as I write for The Desert Sun. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in 2021 that presidents might be abusing the 1906 Antiquities Act, through which more than 100 national monuments have been created, by ignoring a clause about designating the smallest area capable of being managed. He invited opponents of large national monuments to test their arguments before the court. Environmentalists vow to push back, and in the meantime, urge people to get out and enjoy Chuckwalla's wide open spaces.

Sky high. In Florida, so-called chemtrails have been outlawed, despite no evidence of their existence. Other nascent efforts to combat climate change, like cloud seeding, are also banned, per the Tallahassee Democrat.

Messages in a bottle. Soda companies in Rhode Island are trying to persuade the public that a proposed bottle deposit and recycling bill is a bad idea - with some success, reports the Providence Journal. In New York State, though advocates released new data that shows a successful 5 cent deposit fee could reap double the benefits - like keeping plastics out of landfills and off streets, saving millions in clean up costs - if it were raised to 10 cents, per Lohud.

Smoke signals. The new Pope, Leo XIV, a Chicago-born Catholic formerly named Robert Prevost who spent many years in Peru, has been outspoken in the past about the need for urgent climate action and supports solar panels, EVs and other carbon-busting technology, reports Fast Company. As a Cardinal, he said that humans' dominion over nature mentioned in the Bible should not become “tyrannical,” but instead must be a “'relationship of reciprocity’ with the environment," per Vatican News.

Read on for more, including Thoreau's walk along a Cape Cod beach more than 150 years ago, where he marveled at "waves of water or of air." Some stories may require a subscription. If someone forwarded you this email and you'd like to receive Climate Point in your inbox once a week, sign up here.