As the court battle over President Trump’s travel ban raged last week, Congress quietly began rolling back environmental regulations. These regulations, which intend to limit environmental damage from the production of coal and natural gas, were listed on a document called “A Roadmap to Repeal” by a Koch Brothers-backed group. One measure intended to stop methane venting on federal land has already been reversed, according to a Feb. 4 New York Times article. According to Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, “What used to be a wish list of the oil and coal and gas industry has become the to-do list for Congress and the White House,” yet nobody is talking about it. While deregulation and the corporate takeover of Washington do not grab headlines like an immigration ban rightfully does, they nonetheless threaten the welfare of our country and cannot be ignored.

Since Trump took office, the Republican-controlled Congress has successfully used the Congressional Review Act, a law that allows regulations to be overturned within 60 days by a simple majority. President Obama vetoed similar attempts by Congress in the past, according to the same Feb. 4 New York Times article. Further encouraging deregulation, Trump signed an executive order stating that two old regulations must be eliminated for each new one introduced. Trump is expected to target the Waters of the United States Rule and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, according to a Jan. 30 article in the Atlantic. The Waters of the United States Rule aimed to decrease water pollution by clarifying which waterways fall under federal jurisdiction, according the a May 27, 2015 Politico article, and the Clean Power Plan created comprehensive carbon emissions standards for American power plants, according to the EPA. Fossil fuel-based energy companies oppose these regulations because they make the approval of projects like the Dakota Access Pipeline more difficult and cut into profits.

With Congress and the president working in lockstep, the stage is set for more deregulation than we have seen since the Reagan administration.

Speaking in Louisiana in December, Trump pledged to end “job-killing restrictions” in the energy sector, begging the question: Do regulations kill jobs? According to a Dec. 8, 2016 New York Times article, America’s shift away from coal is spurred not by excessive regulation but rather by economics. “On its own, the U.S. economy has become less carbon intensive,” said Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard environmental economics program, according to the same Dec. 8, 2016 New York Times article. In a Jan. 19 article, the Atlantic evaluated American environmental regulations created between 1990 and 2010. The article concluded that while regulations could combine with economic momentum to shift jobs from one sector to another, job loss and creation are natural functions of a market economy and are “not the fault of regulations but rather a result of business conditions.” According to an April 1, 2015 Washington Post article, in the past five years, the coal industry had lost 50,000 jobs, but the natural gas industry, as well as the wind and solar industries, added 94,000 and 79,000 jobs, respectively. While one industry declined due to market pressures, others flourished, and there was a net gain in jobs.

This data supports the assertion that the renewable energy industry is picking up the mantle from the fossil fuel industry. According to a Jan. 25 Forbes article, the solar power industry has grown 5,000 percent in the past decade and currently employs just under 374,000 Americans. By contrast, coal mining currently employs 69,400 Americans, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and power generation from coal, oil, and gas combined employs 187,000, according to the same Jan. 25 Forbes article. Granted, some growth in solar can be attributed to construction and installation, jobs that are not as prevalent in the fossil fuel sector. However, as the market continues to push toward renewable energy, these jobs will be needed to create infrastructure. In Louisiana, Trump complained that “we haven’t had refineries built in decades,” and asserted that “we’re going to have refineries built again,” according to a Dec. 9, 2016 New York Times article. However, favoring an industry with an uncertain future is not a sound plan, and pushing fossil fuels in the face of environmental danger prioritizes the immediate benefit of corporations over the long-term good of Americans.

In late January, Trump issued an executive order which forced the EPA to freeze external communications. Mentions of climate change were wiped from the White House website, according to a Jan. 25 New York Times article. Since then, unofficial, underground Twitter accounts claiming to represent employees of the National Park Service and EPA have appeared in an effort to keep the public informed. However, these accounts lack the credibility and authority of the government, and the White House policy has been to silence and ignore.

Environmental regulations are not threatening our economy. They are encouraging it to grow in a sustainable direction and expediting market trends already in motion. By steamrolling years of these regulations, the Trump administration is doing a disservice to the future of every American in return for the gratitude of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other fossil fuel executives. The new administration is blinding us with executive orders and new policies, alongside gossip pieces such as Nordstrom dropping Ivanka’s fashion line. It is impossible to pay attention to everything, but we cannot ignore the water we drink and the air we breathe.