From Carter to Reagan, From Biden to Trump – All Too Many Similarities

Rona Fried & Annette McGee Rasch

With Trump taking over again – and the dire threats he brings to our cherished ecosystems – we are even more appreciative of Jimmy Carter’s honesty and devotion to wildlife and wildlands. Biden did his part too – we’ll see how he’s remembered for that.

For Jimmy Carter, there’s been wide acclaim for his post-presidential contributions, but what about his great environmental achievements as President? Why are these so often ignored?

Carter was both before his time and right on time.  In addition to everything you’ve heard, here are the great things he accomplished:

My god! He conserved 100 million acres in Alaska, doubling our national park system under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act!!
He tripled the size of our Wild and Scenic Rivers program, designating 40 new rivers and important bodies of water to our National Marine Sanctuary System.
He strengthened the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act
He canceled plans to build 16 dams and started the process of dismantling dams.
He pushed for and signed the Superfund law that forces corporations to clean-up hazardous waste sites.
He started the Department of Energy, FEMA, the Department of Education
He understood the importance of energy efficiency
He famously installed solar panels on the White House
He started the work of transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy
He understood the threat of climate change  
He allocated $10 billion for energy research and development – the largest investment by any modern presidency for domestic energy (until Biden).

Why do these incredible environmental achievements still – TODAY – take a back seat to all the things he did post-presidency, and why weren’t they appreciated during his time as President?

Instead, Americans were turned off by Carter’s “malaise” speech, when he simply talked about being more energy efficient by wearing a sweater and turning down the thermostat!

This was in response to gas and oil shortages in the 70’s when people waited on long lines to gas up their cars. Carter understood this dependence on fossil fuels kept energy prices and reliance on foreign oil high, but Americans didn’t want to hear it.

Carter viewed imported oil as a strategic Achilles heel. Investing in efficiency and renewable energy, he recognized, could help break U.S. dependence on fuels that finance aggression by belligerent petro states like Russia. It could free U.S. families and businesses from global supply shocks beyond our control.

What was Republicans’ response? No one should have to sacrifice or consume less. There’s plenty of oil in Alaska so let’s drill, drill, drill. Reagan won in a landslide and then famously immediately removed the White House solar panels. Then he redirected renewable energy funds (including starting a transition to electric cars) into what later became known as the Iran/Contra scandal.

If Carter’s prescient energy policies and environmental initiatives had taken deeper root we’d be living in a different country today.

At the time, the US had to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a mere 6% – today we can’t solve climate change unless we get off fossil fuels 100%. Quite a difference!! Carter’s prescient approach would have helped set the entire world on a more sustainable course.

Carter was also an avid birder, and as such, he understood the connections between land use, habitat loss and ecological health – and ultimately, the inseparable impacts to human health.

Today, the similarities between Carter/Reagan and Biden/Trump are striking. Carter and Biden remain underappreciated for all the great work they did. They were both followed by Republicans hell bent on reversing their great achievements; and sadly, neither received much credit or respect for being forward-thinking leaders during their presidencies.

As mega storms and wildfires ravage the world, Trump is coming back to power promising to “drill baby drill.” Even with the stakes as high as they can be, Trump and his endless sycophants pander to the fossil fuel industry in exchange for billions in donations. He’s determined to deny what anyone can see with their own eyes – still calling climate change a hoax. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so catastrophic.

Although Biden kept fossil fuels flowing, he did make the largest investment EVER in a renewable energy economy … much of it coming to fruition under Trump as solar, wind and battery manufacturing plants  are built across the US. Read Biden’s incredibly long list of accomplishments.

During Carter’s funeral, as America listened to stories about his gentle lifestyle, deep social conscience and how his respectful demeanor and witty intelligence fueled his many accomplishments, Trump sat there with his usual childish chin-in-the-air countenance.

While Trump is a dictator wannabe who cares little about democracy, another of Carter’s overlooked legacies was his commitment to protecting voter’s rights. Wanting to make sure that every eligible American could vote, Carter urged Congress to pass a package of electoral reforms that included universal same-day voter registration, campaign finance reforms, and a plan to abolish the Electoral College. While the package initially had bipartisan support, the newly formed Heritage Foundation went to work and successfully doomed the reforms. Today, the Heritage Foundation is still at it, calling voter suppression a “myth” and hoping to implement their Project 2025 during Trump’s first 100 days back in office.

Even at 98 years old, Carter filed a “friend of the court” brief to preserve Alaska wilderness. He urged the court to overturn a disastrous land exchange concocted by the Trump administration that would cut the  Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness in half. A road would be built, opening the refuge to mining and other assaults. Environmental groups are still fighting it.

You can help us stop this disastrous land exchange by submitting a public comment by February 13.  Learn more here.

President Carter said, “Let us celebrate… the rivers and lakes that harbor salmon, the game trails of caribous and grizzly in the Brooks Range, the marshes where our waterfowl summer — all these are now preserved, now and, I pray, for all time to come.”  

Carter called his preservation of Alaska’s lands his greatest domestic achievement. He signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act into law on Dec. 2, 1980 – one of the last acts of his presidency. 

Political foes and business forces fought like hell, claiming the law would ruin Alaska – it would close off mining, oil drilling, logging and other economic opportunities. When Congress failed to act, Carter  unilaterally created 55 million acres of national monuments in Alaska.

Carter and Biden shared the best of human traits: kindness, decency and honesty, yet Americans chose Reagan and threw out Carter; just as they now chose Trump over Biden/Kamala Harris. When will the majority of Americans be informed enough to know the difference between reality and lies?

Today, we have a president being inaugurated who is a pathological liar, who has little regard for the rule of law (incited an insurrection!!), who is suing media outlets that criticize him and threatening to jail his political opponents. Good luck America!!

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For more, please read:
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/jimmy-carter-solar-panels
https://grist.org/politics/jimmy-carter-legacy-energy-american-politics/
https://www.adn.com/politics/2024/12/29/jimmy-carter-shaped-modern-alaska-in-profound-lasting-ways/

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Rona Fried, Ph.D. is CEO of SustainableBusiness.com. Annette Rasch runs our Green Dream Jobs service.