Hi all, please find below and attached guidance around the new study from the Brookings Institute demonstrating how states that voted for Trump are also disproportionately impacted by his administration’s rollbacks of lifesaving health and climate safeguards.

A just-released report from the Brookings Institute shows many states that voted for President Trump risk losing the most from the impacts of climate change. But instead of taking action to protect their constituents and communities across the country affected by a continued increase in carbon pollution, Donald Trump and Acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler are rolling back critical climate and public health protections and ignoring their own scientists urging immediate climate action.

• According to a new report from the Brookings Institute, many of the states with the most to lose from the impacts of climate change voted heavily for Trump in 2016.
• But instead of taking action to curb the pollution that’s contributing to climate change, ex-coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler is focused on doling out favors for his former clients by rolling back critical protections like the Clean Power Plan, the clean car standards, and federal methane pollution limits, which are some of the best policies we have on the books to fight climate change and protect our health.
• The report shows how changes in farm yields, coastal damage from rising seas, and heat-related threats to workers impact to a greater extent the counties and states that helped put Trump and Wheeler into office. Specific findings from the report show:
• Nine of the 10 states facing the biggest long-term losses in income voted for Trump in 2016, including Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama.
• Fifteen of the 16 “highest-harm” states were also red - and counties that voted for President Trump in 2016 will experience on average a nearly 5-percent loss of GDP compared to the smaller 3.3 percent loss facing counties that supported Hillary Clinton.
• By the end of the century, Republican-voting counties are projected to experience damages ranging as high as 28 percent of their income if we don’t take immediate action on climate.
• Given the record-breaking 2018 hurricane and wildfire seasons, it’s no surprise that recent polling confirmed that when faced with these dire consequences of climate change, more Americans than ever believe that climate change is an imminent threat and say that the issue is personally important to them.
• Even a majority (52 percent) of Republicans are now joining the 73 percent of Americans who believe climate change is happening.
• All Americans deserve an EPA Administrator that listens to them and is committed to protecting our health and environment. Andrew Wheeler is a climate skeptic set on rolling back climate and public health protections, and is unfit to permanently serve as EPA chief.

Best,

Lia