Two weeks before flooding engulfed Houston, Donald Trump quietly rolled back an order by his predecessor that would have made it easier for communities to use federal emergency aid to rebuild so they could better withstand future disasters.
Now, with much of the nation’s fourth-largest city underwater, critics note the president’s order could force Houston and other cities to rebuild bridges, roads and hospitals in the same way and in the same flood-prone areas.
Michael Gerrard, a professor of environmental and climate change law at Columbia University, said: “Rebuilding while ignoring future flood events is like treating someone for lung cancer and then giving him a carton of cigarettes on the way out the door.
“If you’re going to rebuild after a bad event, you don’t want to expose yourself to the same thing all over again.”
Mr Trump’s action is one of several ways the president, who has called climate change a hoax, has tried to wipe away Barack Obama’s efforts to make the US more resilient to threats posed by the changing climate.
The order Mr Trump revoked would have permitted rebuilding to take into account climate scientists’ predictions of stronger storms and more frequent flooding.
Bridges and roads could have been rebuilt higher, or with better drainage. The foundation of a new fire station or hospital might be elevated an extra 3ft.
While scientists caution against blaming specific weather events like Harvey on climate change, warmer air and warmer water linked to global warming have long been projected to make such storms wetter and more intense.
Houston has had three floods in three years that statistically were once considered one-in-500-year events.
The government was still in the process of implementing Mr Obama’s 2015 order when it was rescinded. That means the old standard – rebuilding storm-ravaged facilities in the same way they had been built before – is still in place.
Mr Trump revoked it as part of an executive order of his own that he touted at an August 15 news conference at Trump Tower.
That news conference was supposed to focus on infrastructure, but it was dominated by his comments on the previous weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
He did not specifically mention the revocation, but he said he was making the federal permitting process for the construction of transportation and other infrastructure projects faster and more cost-efficient without harming the environment.
“It’s going to be quick, it’s going to be a very streamlined process,” Mr Trump said.
Asked about the revocation, the White House said in a statement that Mr Obama’s order did not consider potential impacts on the economy and was “applied broadly to the whole country, leaving little room or flexibility for designers to exercise professional judgment or incorporate the particular context” of a project’s location.
The now-defunct order also revamped Federal Flood Risk Management Standards, calling for tighter restrictions on new construction in flood-prone areas.
Revoking that order was only the latest step by Mr Trump to undo Mr Obama’s actions on climate change.
In March, the president rescinded a 2013 order that directed federal agencies to encourage states and local communities to build new infrastructure and facilities “smarter and stronger” in anticipation of more frequent extreme weather.
Mr Trump revoked a 2015 Obama memo directing agencies developing national security policies to consider the potential impact of climate change.
That order was prompted in part by concerns raised by Colorado governor John Hickenlooper after severe flooding in his state two years earlier. Mr Hickenlooper was dismayed to learn that federal disaster aid rules were preventing state officials from rebuilding “better and smarter than what we had built before”.
The “requirements essentially said you had to build it back exactly the way it was, that you couldn’t take into consideration improvements in resiliency”, Mr Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said.
“We want to be more prepared for the next event, not less prepared.”