Environmental Policies Upended, Climate Plans a Casualty As Trump Takes Power

Analysis: Environmental Policies Upended, Climate Plans a Casualty As Trump Takes Power

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: This analysis from SEJournal’s Joseph A. Davis provides an overview, drawing from our extensive “2025 Journalists’ Guide to Environment + Energy” special report. This ninth annual look ahead explores key issues in the coming year with numerous SEJournal TipSheets, Issue Backgrounders, WatchDog Opinion columns and other forward-looking stories, including from our special EJ TransitionWatch column on the incoming Trump administration.

It has become clear that the coming year will offer earthshaking stories for environmental journalists, as the Trump administration and the Republican-led Congress will try to change the institutions that have protected health and the environment for over 50 years.

The big problem for most people will be staying safe from environmental threats. But for environmental journalists, the big problem will be keeping up with it all.

 

President Donald Trump’s picks

for environmental agencies

were easily confirmed.

 

President Donald Trump’s picks for environmental agencies were easily confirmed. Lee Zeldin was a case in point. Picked as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, the former congressman sailed through the Senate on Jan. 29. A day later, Doug Burgum, a fossil fuel supporter, was easily confirmed as Interior Secretary.

Other Trump nominees relevant to the environmental beat were also OK’d by Congress, including hard sells like vaccine-denier Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services (or Kash Patel, who wants to use the FBI to “come after” news media).

Even likely to be confirmed is Trump's pick to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Neil Jacobs. Jacobs had led NOAA in an acting capacity in Trump’s first term — when he was hit for an ethics violation for his role in “Sharpiegate,” thereby demonstrating his loyalty to the president.

 

Climate policy a casualty

One of the hardest jobs will be keeping up with Trump’s planned effort to kneecap U.S. efforts to address climate change. On Jan. 21, his first full day in office, he announced U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement (although the actual withdrawal procedure could take a year).

We can already see Trump’s EPA erasing the word “climate” wherever it can on the EPA website. It’s a big job and they are not done. It started even before Zeldin was confirmed. It’s also happening at most other federal agencies.

The underlying climate data would be harder to delete. There is a lot of it.

The good news is that it has all been backed up in multiple places. And multiple groups, such as the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, are preserving it as well.

 

The motive for the disappearance

of climate data is to obscure and

distort the public’s attention

to the climate crisis.

 

The motive for the disappearance is to obscure and distort the public’s attention to the climate crisis. That will be easier — unless the media fuss about it.

Journalists probably should avoid getting distracted. They can still cover climate.

 

Regulations — made, unmade

The more important climate action will be the regulations the EPA finalized under the Biden administration. There are several. We expect that with a trifecta in both houses of Congress and the White House, Republicans will try to undo them.

In April 2024, for instance, the Biden EPA finalized a suite of four rules (may require subscription) aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plants. The most important one requires existing coal plants to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2039. That one is so tough that most utilities would rather shut their coal plants down than try to meet it. Some utilities complain, but gas and renewables are cheaper anyway.

Also key are vehicle emission standards. The Biden EPA finalized a set of new, tougher tailpipe rules in March 2024. Those stringent regulations for gas vehicles would drive buyers toward the purchase of more electric vehicles.

Republicans do not like them. The House voted to repeal that rule in September 2024, but the Senate did not follow suit. We can expect the Trump 2.0 EPA to try to revoke them.

Methane is another important greenhouse gas. A lot of it is leaking from oil and gas operations. The Biden administration finalized its methane reduction rule in November 2024.

 

The Biden administration’s

methane reduction rule will be

harder to undo because Congress

mandated it in the Inflation Reduction Act.

 

That will be harder to undo because Congress mandated it in the Inflation Reduction Act. Also, some energy companies are OK with it, because leaking and flaring methane robs them of profits. It remains to be seen whether the current narrowly divided Congress can muster the votes to repeal it.

Then there is the “endangerment finding.” The EPA can regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act if it finds they endanger human health. The Supreme Court opened the door to this action in the landmark Massachusetts v. EPA case in April 2007. EPA followed suit with its finding in December 2009. Repeated battles over emissions ensued. 

Many Republicans want to repeal it — but it would be hard, either by rulemaking or by legislative action.

 

What next?

Already, Trump’s campaign to eliminate environmental justice is a fait accompli. He did it by executive order, not just at the EPA but at many other agencies as well. Most EPA environmental justice staff have already been fired or put on leave.

The bigger question is how many other EPA employees will be laid off or driven to quit. That story is still developing.

How else the Trump 2.0 regime will play out on the environmental beat remains unclear. Republicans may “go after” reporters. They may try to hamstring conservation laws like the Endangered Species Act. They will very likely try to constrain and slow down chemical regulations under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Right now, they seem to be focused on deleting the word “climate” wherever they can find it on the websites of multiple agencies. And creating so much chaos that, in the end, it’s possible they may not get much else done.

Be sure to check out our full “2025 Journalists’ Guide to Environment + Energy” special report, with more than three dozen stories from the pages of the SEJournal.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 8. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.