"Why Does Trump Want to Pull Plug on the Cleanup of the Chesapeake?"

"The decades-long federal program to clean up Chesapeake Bay is showing signs of success and is supported by politicians of both parties. So why is the Trump administration seeking to eliminate funding for it?"

"President Donald Trump’s first budget would eliminate all of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s $73 million in annual funding for restoring Chesapeake Bay. It is a radical break with decades of federal policy that ironically comes just when investment in the nation’s largest estuary appears to be paying off.

'After decades the bay is finally turning around,' says Walter Boynton, a University of Maryland researcher. 'Time to double down, build on the momentum, spend more, not less.'

Boynton has been studying the bay since early signs of decline 45 years ago mobilized the likes of U.S. Senator Charles Mathias, EPA Administrator Russell Train, Interior Secretary Rogers Morton, and community leader Arthur Sherwood, who started the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

All were Republicans, Boynton notes."

Tom Horton reports for Yale Environment 360 April 27, 2017.