US President Donald Trump has signed executive orders supporting two new oil pipelines, much to the anger of environmentalists. The Keystone XL and Dakota Access projects are designed to carry crude oil from Canada to Texas and were both halted by the Obama administration in 2015.
Last year, the Army began to explore alternative routes for the Dakota pipeline following protests from Native Americans, particularly the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose land abuts the proposed route of the Dakota pipeline.
However, Mr Trump has stated that the pipeline will create 28,000 jobs, and will have to be built from American steel, but campaigners have stated that once the project is complete only a handful of positions will remain. Mr Trump also said that the projects would be subject to renegotiated terms and conditions.
Greenpeace director Annie Leonard said that, "instead of pushing bogus claims about the potential of pipelines to create jobs, Trump should focus his efforts on the clean energy sector where America's future lives." The oil industry has applauded the move.
This is not the only environmental issue from the US to hit the news in the early days of the Trump administration. It was noticed that the Badlands National Park in South Dakota had tweeted about the high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. After being widely shared, the tweets were then removed. In addition, according to the Associated Press news agency, a media blackout has been introduced at the Environmental Protection Agency banning staff from awarding new contracts or posing on any of the Agency's social media accounts.
It remains to be seen how Mr Trump will approach the environment through policy. In the past, he had said that climate change was a hoax, and upon taking office the White House website was changed in order to delete climate change policies. In contrast, though, during a meeting with automobile executives at the White House, Mr Trump claimed he was an environmentalist and said, "I'm a very big person when it comes to the environment. I have received awards on the environment."
Recently, it has been also revealed that Mr Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by NASA as a part of a crackdown on "politicized science". The NASA's Earth Science Division, which mostly conducted research on temperature, ice, clouds and climate phenomena, is to be stripped of all funding from the government in favour of deep space exploration.
