Apr 7, 2017 4 min read

Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States:

Those of us who breathe in clean air, eat safe foods and drink clean water every day should cherish what we have. Not everyone around the world – or even around the country – is so blessed.

Over the years, presidents from both major parties have promoted cleaner air and water for all Americans. Through a series of regulations, this nation is well on its way to reaching that goal.

We also are on the way to reducing humankind’s effect on our changing climate, although we have a long way to go. Yes, the climate constantly is changing, but every reputable scientist says the denizens of earth are increasing that change rapidly – and not to the benefits of everyone who calls this planet home.

There are those good people who, while enjoying the fruits of the environmentalists’ labors, continue to deny that climate change is serious or even exists – and if it does, there is no reason to believe humans are responsible in large part for the degradation of our atmosphere and our planet. To them, many environmental protections are unnecessary and, often, overly burdensome.

Perhaps some of the regulations are not as clear or as necessary as they were intended. Every government regulation, whether involving the environment or some other aspect of life, should undergo review periodically.

But to throw out a regulation simply because it was put in place by a different party or because it inconveniences your fat cat buddies is wrong. That is exactly what President Donald Trump is doing. Simply put, regulations exist because a potential problem was identified and some well-intentioned people came up with what they believed to be a solution. For the most part, those regulations have benefited most Americans, who enjoy safe foods, refreshingly clean water, breathable air.

The president shouldn’t overturn rules wholesale without considering the reason for those rules, options for change, and a long-term understanding of what happens if the rules remain in place or if they are negated. Perhaps some of the regulations do need to be modified, and maybe even some tossed out, but we won’t know if we don’t look at each one individually.

We’re not sure why President Donald Trump proposed stripping 90 percent of the federal funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. In his initial budget proposal, the president outlined a plan to cut $300 million from the program.

It could be simply Trump’s “Art of the Deal” approach, an opening salvo for his budget negotiations with Congress later this year.

It could be his budget team simply misunderstood the president’s intentions and mistakenly put the cut into Trump’s budget proposal.

Or, it could be the president really wants to eliminate the program and let market forces determine the fate of Lake Erie, the Great Lakes and the entire Great Lakes region.

But whether Trump’s reasoning is any of those, or something else, makes no difference in the final analysis. All of them are unacceptable, and just plain ill-advised. The Great Lakes are not negotiable, or a negotiating item.

Creating Confederate History Month, as some lawmakers propose, would be fine with us, but only if it teaches reality instead of myth.

Otherwise, the bill’s sponsors should be ashamed of themselves for trying to perpetuate a distorted view of history with no care for the ignorance they spread or the pain they cause millions of Georgians who wish the Confederacy would die, once and for all, or at least not be glorified.

If we are to honor the valor, the bravery, the sacrifices of the Confederates, we must also acknowledge the cruelty, the degradation, the inhumanity of slavery, the institution which was the Confederacy’s founding principle.

Unless we tell it all, we’d be honoring a fairy tale, not history. We’d be dishonoring the millions of Georgians who were kidnapped and sold into slavery or who descended from those who were.

They, too, are citizens of our state and are due the same respect as those who descended from the soldiers and generals of the CSA.