2-News

W

ith polls having closed 
and the result in — albeit, 
after a painfully long 

wait — it appears as though former 
Vice President Joe Biden has won the 
presidency while Democrats have 
kept the House of Representatives but 
fell short of taking back the Senate for 
now. Controlling the White House 
and the lower chamber of Congress 
while not having the Senate will 
complicate matters when it comes 
to climate change, which Biden 
called the “number one issue facing 
humanity.” 

Add in a 6-3 conservative 

majority in the Supreme Court 
following 
the 
confirmation 

of Amy Coney Barrett, and 
potential-President Biden will 
be facing a tough road ahead to 
pass any meaningful legislation 
to 
fight 
climate 
change 
or 

protect 
the 
environment. 

Without the support of either 
the Senate or the Supreme Court, 
Democrats will need to rely on 
the Environmental Protection 
Agency 
for 
environmental 

regulations and protections. 

On its own, the EPA cannot 

pass any legislation that would 
allocate money and resources 
toward 
an 
environmental 

project. However, it does have 
the power to pass regulations 
as well as enforce existing laws 
with fines and sanctions. The 
EPA can also take companies to 
court if they fail to comply with 
the protections. Since the EPA is 
defined as a “regulatory agency,” 

it is granted power under the 
Code of Federal Regulations to 
establish rules that people and 
corporations are required by law 
to follow. 

President Donald Trump and 

his appointed EPA administrator 
Andrew 
Wheeler 
have 

completely gutted environmental 
protections. They have rolled 
back 72 different regulations and 
are in the process of removing 27 
more, bringing the total number 
of regulations overturned to 
99. Against the advice of many
scientists, Trump’s EPA rejected
a strict standard for improving
air quality. Back in 2019, Trump
weakened 
the 
Endangered

Species Act, making it easier
to take a species off the list
and 
decreasing 
protections

for animals on it. About one
year later, Wheeler revised the
Clean Water Act, making it
easier for coal plants to pollute
neighboring rivers. Trump and
Wheeler also threw away limits
on methane restrictions at oil
and gas sites. Trump has used his 
four years in office to devastate
the environment — among many
other things — putting pressure
on the next administration to
clean up the mess. 

When Biden is sworn into 

the presidency in January of 
next year, it will be extremely 
telling who he brings into his 
administration with him. Under 
Obama, the EPA administrators 
were Lisa Jackson, a chemical 

engineer, and Gina McCarthy, 
an environmental health and 
air quality expert. If a Biden 
administration looks anything 
like 
Obama’s 
administration, 

then Biden, at the very least, 
will not nominate a former coal 
lobbyist like Trump has. 

Who 
Biden 
decides 
to 

nominate for EPA administrator 
will tell us a lot about how he 
will govern his four years as 
president. A name that has been 
floated numerous times for the 
position is Sen. Tom Carper, 
D-Del., who has been friends with 
Biden for almost 50 years. Carper 
serves as the top Democrat on
the Environment and Public 
Works Committee and has joined 
Biden in calling the climate
crisis the “the greatest crisis we
face right now on our planet.”
Carper also boasts a 100% voting
record according to the League
of Conservation Voters. Another
name being floated is U.S. Rep.
Donald McEachin, D-Va., whom
Biden trusted to put on the
Biden-Sanders unity task force
for climate change. McEachin
serves on the House Committee
on Energy and Commerce, the
Committee on Natural Resources 
and the Select Committee on the
Climate Crisis.

Other names that have been 

floated include Washington Gov. Jay 
Inslee, former Democratic Nominee 
and Secretary of State John Kerry, 
U.S. 
Rep. 
Alexandria 
Ocasio-

Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sens. Bernie 

Sanders, I-Vt., and Ed Markey, 
D-Mass. Biden’s pick will tell us a 
lot about how he will deal with the 
environment and climate change. 
He can pick a more moderate choice 
like Carper, McEachin or Kerry and 
the next four years will be filled 
with small, incremental changes. 
He could opt for a progressive 
option like Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders 
or Markey and the EPA can lead 
with bold, aggressive sweeping 
changes that will clean up our 
environment and greatly improve 
public health. While Sanders has 
called Biden “the most progressive 
Democratic nominee since Franklin 
Delano Roosevelt,” his EPA choice 
will tell us a great deal about the 
truth to that bold statement. 

While the EPA will be a 

necessary and vital tool for 
environmental policy during the 
next four years, it will also tell us 
how far left Biden is willing to go. 
During the debate, when Trump 
stated that Biden will “listen to 
the scientists” as an attempted 
insult, Biden needed only one 
word to respond, “yes.” Biden has 
repeatedly said he will “follow 
the science” despite refusing to 
commit to banning fracking, which 
a majority of scientists believe is 
destroying the environment and 
public health. Biden must make a 
progressive EPA pick in order to 
truly “listen to the scientists.”

A

t 2:47 a.m. on Nov. 9, 
2016, Wolf Blitzer said 
12 words that mortified 

half the republic: “Right now, 
a 
historic 
moment. 
CNN 

projects Donald Trump wins 
the presidency.” As a member 
of the mortified population, 
by 2:48 a.m., I was already 
looking 
ahead 
to 
2020. 

Anticipating 
— 
correctly, 

as time has shown — the 
damaging scourge a Trump 
presidency would represent, 
I, like many of my appalled 
Democratic brethren, circled 
a date on the calendar buried 
deep in an alien future: Nov. 
3, 2020. 

The 
bitter 
shock 
to 

Democrats wasn’t just that 
Trump won; it was that he 
won, and we didn’t see it 
coming. 
We 
got 
T-boned 

by 
a 
MAGA 
truck. 
Most 

Democrats, and perhaps even 
a good deal of Republicans, 
expected Hillary Clinton to 
win the election; as terrifying 
as the specter of a Trump 
victory 
was, 
we 
knew 
it 

would never come to fruition. 
Hillary, flawed as she might 
have been, was going to win, 
and the dumpster fire that 
was 
the 
Trump 
campaign 

would be rightly relegated to 
the landfill of history. 2016 
was already licked, sealed and 
stamped.

It was a numbers game, 

a 
question 
of 
statistics, 

and it lulled us into a naive 
complacency. By most polling 
metrics, Hillary should have 
cruised to victory on Nov. 8, 
2016. 
FiveThirtyEight, 
one 

of the most reliable election 
forecasters, gave Hillary a 
70.9% chance of winning on 
the eve of the election — not 

a shoo-in, but comfortable 
odds if you were on the 
blue team. Predicting more 
than 300 electoral votes for 
the 
Democratic 
nominee, 

FiveThirtyEight 
believed 

Wisconsin,
Michigan, 

Pennsylvania, 
Iowa, 
Ohio, 

North Carolina and Florida 
would 
cast 
blue 
electoral 

votes. All of these states went 
red, and in doing so delivered 
Trump a healthy electoral 
college victory.

Is the 2016 phenomenon 

playing 
out 
again? 
As 

of 
Wednesday, 
Oct. 
28, 

FiveThirtyEight 
gives 
Joe 

Biden 
an 
88% 
chance 
of 

bringing home the bacon. The 
bitter memory of 2016 should 
remind Democrats, though, 
that victory is not assured. 
Wisconsin, 
Michigan 
and 

Pennsylvania do lean blue 
according to the polls and if 
that holds, Biden should win. 
But Wisconsin, Michigan and 
Pennsylvania 
leaned 
blue 

according to the polls in 2016, 
and if that held, Hillary would 
have won. Look how that 
turned out. 

We have to be wary of 

putting too much faith in 
these metrics, and we can’t be 
surprised if a similar scenario 
unravels 
again. 
If 
Trump 

holds the swing states in the 
South 
— 
Florida, 
Georgia 

and North Carolina — as well 
as Ohio, all of a sudden he’s 
well within striking distance. 
There are a million ways the 
electoral map could play out, 
but the upshot is that this 
thing could be a lot closer 
than many seem to believe. 
While Biden should win, we 
shouldn’t be shell-shocked if 
Trump does.

So, what happens if 2016 

happens again? Even if Trump 
finesses another upset victory, 
Biden will almost certainly 
have 
still 
captured 
the 

popular vote, and likely to the 
tune of several million. If this 
is the case, the Democratic 
Party ought to prioritize the 
abolition 
of 
the 
Electoral 

College — a move that more 
than 
half 
of 
Americans 

favor — to be replaced with 
the 
popular 
vote. 
And 
it 

would be entirely justified. 
Since 2000, the Republican 
nominee will have won the 
popular vote, indicative of 
the real will of the voting 
public, only one time in the 
past six presidential contests. 
Despite this, the Republican 
candidate will have won three 
out of the past six elections. 
Does that sound like healthy 
democracy to you? 

But 
for 
the 
Democratic 

Party, there are also bigger, 
harder questions they will 
have to face in the event of 
a loss. Questions of identity 
— the soul of the party. In 
the 
past 
two 
presidential 

elections, 
Democratic 

primary voters would have 
tapped the “safe,” moderate 
establishment 
candidate 
— 

Clinton and Biden — and lost. 
It’s more than just identifying 
that the “safe” candidate isn’t 
the surest route to victory: 
it’s identifying that Trumpian 
populism invigorates people, 
and hardly anyone actually 
gets excited about voting for 
Biden. For many voters, Biden 
is simply the lesser of two 
evils; they are against Trump, 
and they are consequently for 
Biden. 

A party defining itself by 

what it is against more than 
what it is for is sure to excite 
no one. I recognize that these 
are exceptional times, and 
that the 2020 presidential 
election was always bound 
to 
be 
a 
referendum 
on 

Trump. But if the Democrats 
lose again, they’ll need a 
facelift. There’s clearly an 
appetite for populism in the 
republic, and they need to 
be better salespeople. Only 
by incorporating some of the 
party’s 
left-wing 
elements 

— 
the 
Bernie 
Sanders/

Alexandria 
Ocasio-Cortez 

faction — can the Democrats 
gain 
a 
clearer 
sense 
of 

identity.

Republicans will scream, 

as some already are, that 
the Democrats have become 
socialists, 
and 
they 
will 

appeal to Americans’ primal 

fear of socialism à la Eugene 
McCarthy. Let them say what 
they will. To associate the left 
wing of the Democratic Party 
with the hammer and sickle is 
an anti-intellectual cop-out, a 
way to protect conservatives 
from having to actually debate 
their ideas. 

But this is really a different 

discussion for a different day. 
And perhaps, in the event 
of a victory, the Democrats 
will not have to consider 
a reconfiguration of their 

party’s identity. But if Biden 

loses fair and square on Nov. 
3, one thing becomes clear: 
if the moderate wing of the 
party can’t beat someone as 
incompetent and insane as 
Trump, it’s become no country 
for the old Dems.

I 

know something Michigan 
State University has that 
we don’t.

It’s something that, despite 

the 
interconnectedness 
of 

our campus with downtown 
Ann Arbor, the city has not 
managed to acquire.

It’s something that would 

be a major convenience to 
students and other residents of 
the downtown area, something 
that would increase downtown 
foot 
traffic 
and 
stimulate 

downtown businesses.

It is: a grocery store.
In July 2019, supermarket 

chain 
Target 
opened 
a 

“small-format” 
store 
in 

downtown East Lansing. The 
store is essentially a scaled-
down version of a typical 
Target 
supermarket, 
with 

the 
exception 
of 
reduced 

children’s clothing and toy 
sections. Otherwise, all of the 
clothing and home goods that 
can be found at the average 
supermarket can be found 
there, with a quarter of the 
store devoted to food and 
groceries.

The (relatively) new store’s 

best feature? It’s located on 
Grand River Avenue, which is 
in the heart of East Lansing’s 
downtown area and is right 
across the street from MSU’s 
campus.

After two years of living 

here, I’m surprised that Ann 
Arbor doesn’t have its own 
downtown 
supermarket. 

There’s 
the 
Ann 
Arbor 

Farmers Market in Kerrytown, 
which sells plenty of local 
produce but is, of course, only 
a seasonal offering. There’s 
a Walgreens on the corner 
of State Street and North 
University Avenue, but unless 
you are committed to fulfilling 
the college student stereotype 
of surviving solely on instant 
ramen, you can’t live off of 
what is sold there. Instead, 
anybody living near downtown 
Ann Arbor who wants to 
do any sort of substantial, 
reliable grocery shopping is 
consigned to making a trip to 
Meijer, Target, Trader Joe’s 
or another grocery store well 
away from the city center. For 
many students, the distance 
to even the closest of these 
destinations is impractical to 
travel without the help of a bus 
or car.

This configuration is by no 

means unusual in American 
cities, but that doesn’t mean 
that relocating supermarkets 
and 
grocery 
stores 
won’t 

benefit 
communities, 

especially 
a 
college 
town 

like Ann Arbor, where high 
concentrations of students — 
many of whom don’t own cars 
— live close to downtown.

The most obvious benefit 

of downtown supermarkets 
is 
convenience. 
Given 
a 

downtown shopping location, 
students would easily be able 
to incorporate shopping into 
trips to and from class or 
work. The epic journey down 
Ann Arbor-Saline Road to 
Meijer, on the other hand, 
takes 
around 
10 
minutes 

by car, and isn’t on the way 
to anything but a couple of 
nearby fast food places. If 
a small-format Meijer was 
located on State Street, for 
example, students could pick 
up the week’s produce on the 
way home from class at Mason 
Hall, with only a block’s worth 
of extra walking, rather than 
having to carve out an hour or 
two of their time a week for 
a trip to Meijer’s current and 

closest location.

Other downtown businesses 

would benefit from a nearby 
grocery store as well. As well-
loved as local independent 
businesses like Dawn Treader 
Book Shop and Underground 
Sounds are, most people would 
consider their need for food to 
be greater than their need for 
fine literature; a supermarket 
would bring to the downtown 
area 
people 
who 
might 

not 
otherwise 
patronize 

downtown small businesses, 
helping to keep the local 
institutions 
that 
give 
Ann 

Arbor its unique character in 
robust health.

It’s clear that the addition 

of 
a 
supermarket 
to 
the 

downtown area would benefit 
both students and Ann Arbor 
residents 
and 
businesses. 

But why would supermarket 
companies be interested in 
making such an expansion? As 
it turns out, downtown areas 
provide them with a unique 
opportunity for growing their 
businesses. According to an 
article from the Michigan 
Retailers Association, urban 
regions could serve as vital 
areas of expansion for chains 
like Meijer. As Cindy Ciura, 
principal of Bloomfield Hills-
based 
consulting 
firm 
CC 

Consulting, said, “If I’m a 
Meijer, how am I going to grow 
my business? I’m everywhere I 
want to be in suburbia.”

Opening stores downtown 

would also help businesses 
adapt to trends of increasing 
urbanization. 
According 

to data from the Southeast 
Michigan 
Council 
of 

Governments, Ann Arbor and 
Detroit led the region in new 
residential permits in 2016. 
The vast majority of the new 
permits were for apartments 
(95% in Detroit and 85% in 
Ann 
Arbor) 
signalling 
an 

increase 
in 
high-density 

residential 
areas. 
These 

increasing urban populations 
will need expanded retail and 
grocery offerings to meet their 
needs, and supermarkets can 
increase revenue by opening 
more downtown locations to 
fill this growing demand.

The 
Michigan 
Retailers’ 

Association article does concede 
that the costs of building, owning 
and operating businesses in 
downtown areas are higher 
than in suburban areas, and 
that some supermarket chains, 
like Walmart, have failed to 
construct a successful business 
model around small-scale stores. 
The fact that there are plenty of 
businesses that are still willing 
to try, however, shows that the 
potential benefits are well 
worth those costs. Target’s move 
into East Lansing, for example, 
was part of a larger effort to 
expand its number of small-
format stores from 65 to 130 
between 2018 and 2019.

Today, 
Target 
only 
has 

100 small-format stores, but 
those that have opened have 
continued to be financially 
successful, 
and 
plans 
are 

underway to construct more. 
The City of Ann Arbor should 
take advantage of Target and 
other companies’ willingness 
to invest in a new format of 
grocery store, and provide our 
community with an alternative 
to 
suburban 
supermarkets. 

One that will bring more 
people downtown and increase 
the vibrancy of our urban 
community.

 Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

What is the future of the EPA with a Republican Senate?

ALEXANDER NOBEL | COLUMNIST

No country for old Dems

MAX STEINBAUM | COLUMNIST

Max Steinbaum can be reached at 

maxst@umich.edu. 

Evan Dempsey can be reached at 

evangd@umich.edu.

Target acquired

EVAN DEMPSEY | COLUMNIST

Design courtesy of Cara Jheng/Daily

Alexander Nobel can be reached at 

anobel@umich.edu. 

