As president, Donald Trump’s sweeping attempts to roll back federal environmental regulations were often stymied — by the courts, by a lack of experience, even by internal resistance from government employees.
But if he retakes the White House in November, Trump would be in a far better position to dismantle environmental and climate rules, aided by more sympathetic judges and conservative allies who are already mapping out ways to bend federal agencies to the president’s will.
“It’s going to be easier,” said Myron Ebell, who led the transition at the Environmental Protection Agency after Trump won in 2016. “They’re going to have better people, more committed people, more experienced people. They will be able to move more quickly, and more successfully, in my view.”
On the campaign trail, Trump has promised to repeal federal regulations designed to cut greenhouse gas pollution that is rapidly heating the planet. Many of his allies want to go further. They are drafting plans to slash budgets, oust career staffers, embed loyalists in key offices and scale back the government’s powers to tackle climate change, regulate industries and restrict hazardous chemicals.
Those plans, while wildly ambitious, may be more attainable next time around. Perhaps the biggest change in Trump’s favor is that over the past two years, the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority has significantly curbed the legal authority of the government to impose environmental rules on businesses.
At the same time, Trump has proposed reclassifying tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to fire them. He has said that move, which he tried to implement at the end of his first term, is necessary to “destroy the deep state” that he says secretly worked against his presidency. The result is that a second Trump administration might not face as many legal or bureaucratic guardrails as the first.
“Because of the Supreme Court in particular, he’ll be able to get away with a lot more than anyone ever suspected,” said Christine Todd Whitman, who led the EPA under President George W. Bush. She said the courts have effectively given a second Trump administration a “free hand” to slash regulations.
That could mean a drastic transformation of the EPA, which was created by a Republican, Richard Nixon, and for five decades has played a powerful role in American society, from forcing communities to reduce smog to regulating the use of pesticides. Businesses and conservative groups have long said that excessive regulation drives up costs for industries from electric utilities to home building. Environmentalists say that handcuffing the EPA now, when time is short to contain global warming, could have dire consequences.
A significant weakening of the EPA, said Whitman, is “going to be devastating for the country and the world, frankly, because we all suffer from climate change.”
Trump’s spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement that “President Trump made America a net exporter of energy for the first time because he cut red tape and gave the industry more freedom to do what they do best — utilize the liquid gold under our feet.” If elected, he would “cancel Joe Biden’s radical mandates, terminate the Green New Scam, and make America energy independent again,” she said.
In 2023, the United States pumped more crude oil than any other nation in history and it is the world’s leading exporter of liquefied natural gas.
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ROLLING BACK REGULATIONS
Trump doesn’t detail his plans for the EPA, apart from promising to scrap two major Biden administration regulations designed to reduce greenhouse gases from power plants and cars. His allies, however, have laid out specific proposals as part of a transition plan known as Project 2025, spearheaded by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
While Trump has recently sought to distance himself from Project 2025, much of the plan was written by people who were top advisers during his first term and could serve in prominent roles if he wins in November.
In a 32-page section on the EPA, the plan takes aim at the agency’s authority to tackle global warming, including by revisiting a 2009 scientific finding that says carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health. The blueprint also calls for repealing regulations governing air pollution from factories that crosses state borders and for reconsidering limits on PFAS, toxic compounds known as “forever chemicals” that have been detected in nearly half the nation’s tap water.
Project 2025 also calls for eliminating EPA’s office of environmental justice, which focuses on reducing pollution in low-income and minority areas; breaking up an office dedicated to children’s health; resetting scientific advisory boards “to expand opportunities for a diversity of scientific viewpoints”; and appointing a political loyalist as the agency’s science adviser in order to “reform” the agency’s research.
“To implement policies that are consistent with a conservative EPA, the agency will have to undergo a major reorganization,” reads the section on the EPA, which was written by Mandy Gunasekara, the agency’s chief of staff during the Trump administration. Gunasekara didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Some EPA employees are already preparing for a Trump presidency. The American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, a union that represents about 8,000 EPA workers, recently secured a new contract provision that allows workers to file a grievance if they face retaliation for their scientific work.
Still, a dramatic reorganization along with new political pressures could drive many career employees to leave, hollowing out the agency, which some say is what a Trump administration would want. “These proposals are basically taking a blender to the agency,” said Marie Owens, president of Council 238. “Frankly, it’s frightening, people are asking, should I leave before all this happens?”
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FEWER OBSTACLES
Scaling back federal regulations is an arduous, time-consuming process that requires agencies to lay out detailed justifications for changing rules, respond to public comments and then defend the moves in federal court. Judges often have little patience for rushed or sloppy work.
In Trump’s first term, officials sometimes announced they had erased a regulation only to be reversed by the courts because they had skipped important steps. All told, the administration lost 57% of cases challenging its environmental policies, a much higher loss rate than previous administrations, according to a database kept by New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity.
(“The first Trump administration came in without having been prepared to take over the government,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, a former senior EPA official in President George W. Bush’s administration who now works as an energy lawyer for Bracewell LLP. “I don’t think they’ll make the same mistakes again.”
The courts could also prove more sympathetic next time around. With three Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump, the court now has a conservative supermajority that has shown a deep skepticism toward environmental regulation. The court has sometimes blocked rules that were still being adjudicated in lower courts or before they were implemented.
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