CORY DAWSON

Associated Press

BURLINGTON - The chief architect of former President Barack Obama’s climate change strategy said Friday it’s imperative to remain vigilant in the “battle” against the Trump administration’s hard-line opposition to environmental issues.

Todd Stern, the lead U.S. negotiator of the Paris Climate Accord, told an audience at an environmental summit in Vermont it would be devastating if progress made under Obama were reversed.

“There is a battle going on internally about whether to walk away from Paris, or not walk away,” Stern said, referring to the 2015 meeting that resulted in a majority of nations agreeing to limit global temperature rise.

Stern said countries technically aren’t allowed to back out of the agreement until 2020. But as a practical matter, President Donald Trump could decide to back out tomorrow, he said.

Stern spoke at the Leahy Center Environmental Summit, which is being held at ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain. He said states need to organize to enact and protect environmental safeguards.

“I hope that there is an alliance or coalition of states that can pull together,” he said, singling out California as having among the most progressive environmental protections in the world.

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy predicted the Republican president’s budget proposal, which includes deep cuts to environmental programs, would not pass Congress.

“Both Democrats and Republicans have problems with it. The budget seems to be designed for a tweet,” said the Vermont Democrat, who is vice-chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Environmental concerns and Trump’s proposed budget were uppermost in the minds of summit attendees.

“You can’t just do away with all this money and expect it’s going to work,” said Shaun Fielder, executive director of the Vermont Rural Water Association, which draws two-thirds of its budget from federal sources.

Fielder said that since news of the possible cuts broke, he has been getting calls from water system managers who say they will have severe difficulty keeping water supplies clean without help from the association.

Environmental organizations are developing contingency plans to deal with a depleted federal budget, said Mary Russ, director of an organization that protects the White River watershed that feeds the Connecticut River.

“In every meeting, it comes up,” Russ said of the proposed cuts. Russ’ organization gets about 30 percent of its funding from federal sources, she said.

Vermont’s 14 conservation districts have been holding weekly meetings to plan for depleted federal money, said Hilary Solomon, manager of a district in southern Vermont. The over 3,000 conservation districts in the U.S. are key managers of soil and water quality.