As president, Donald Trump’s sweeping attempts to roll back pro-environmental regulations at the federal level were often stymied by the courts, inexperience and even internal resistance from government employees.
But if he returns to the White House in November, Trump would be in a much better position to dismantle environmental and climate rules, aided by more receptive judges and conservative allies who are already planning 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, more experienced. They’ll be able to move faster and more successfully, in my opinion.”
On the campaign trail, Trump has promised to repeal federal regulations designed to reduce greenhouse gas pollution that is rapidly warming the planet. Many of his allies want to go a step further. They are drawing up plans to slash budgets, fire career officials, insert regime loyalists into key positions and reduce the government’s ability to address climate change, regulate industries and restrict dangerous chemicals.
While extremely ambitious, those plans may be more achievable in a second Trump term. Perhaps the biggest change in Trump’s favor is that over the past two years, the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court has significantly curbed the government’s legal authority to impose environmental regulations on businesses.
At the same time, Trump has proposed reclassifying tens of thousands of career civil servants, which would make them easier to fire. He has said that the move, which he sought 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 upshot is that a second Trump administration may not face as many legal or bureaucratic hurdles as the first.
“Thanks to the Supreme Court in particular, he’s going to be able to get away with a lot more than anyone might suspect,” said Christine Todd Whitman, who led the EPA under President George W. Bush. Whitman said the courts have essentially given a second Trump administration “carte blanche” to slash regulations.
That could mean a dramatic overhaul of the EPA, which was created by a Republican, Richard Nixon, and for five decades has played a major role in American society, from forcing communities to reduce smog to regulating pesticide use. Business and conservative groups have long argued that excessive regulation drives up costs for industries from power plants to home construction. Environmentalists say restricting the EPA now, with little time left to curb global warming, could have dire consequences.
According to Whitman, a significant weakening of the EPA “is going to be devastating for the country and the world, if I’m honest, because we’re all suffering from climate change.”
Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that “President Trump made America a net energy exporter for the first time because he cut red tape and gave industry more freedom to do what it does best: use the liquid gold beneath our feet.” If elected, “he will cancel Joe Biden’s radical mandates, end the New Green Scam, and make America energy independent again,” she said.
By 2023, the United States will pump more crude oil than any other nation in history and is the world’s leading exporter of liquefied natural gas.
Roll back regulations
Trump has not detailed his plans for the EPA, other than promising to scrap two major Biden administration regulations designed to reduce greenhouse gases from power plants and cars. But his allies have laid out specific proposals as part of a transition plan known as Project 2025, which is spearheaded by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Although Trump has recently sought to distance himself from Project 2025, much of the plan was written by people who were senior 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 address global warming, including revising a 2009 scientific finding that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health. The plan also calls for repealing rules regulating air pollution from factories and crossing state lines and reconsidering limits on PFAS, toxic compounds known as “forever chemicals” that have been detected in nearly half of the nation’s tap water.
Project 2025 also calls for eliminating the EPA’s environmental justice office, which focuses on reducing pollution in low-income and minority areas; disbanding an office dedicated to children’s health; re-forming scientific advisory councils “to expand opportunities for diversity of scientific viewpoints”; and appointing a political loyalist as the agency’s science adviser 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 did not respond to a request for comment.
Some EPA employees are already preparing for a Trump presidency. Council 238 of the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing about 8,000 EPA workers, recently secured a new contract provision allowing workers to file a grievance if they are retaliated against for their scientific work.
But a drastic shakeup coupled with new political pressures could lead to the departure of many career employees and hollow out the agency, which would be the goal of a Trump administration, according to some people. “These proposals are essentially creating upheaval in the agency,” said Marie Owens, president of Council 238. “Frankly, it’s terrifying — people are asking, should I leave before all this happens?”
Less obstacles
Cutting back on federal regulations is an arduous, slow process that requires agencies to justify rule changes in detail, respond to public comments and then defend the moves in federal court. Judges often have little patience for rushed or shoddy work.
In Trump’s first term, officials sometimes announced they had scrapped a regulation only to have the courts overturn the move because they had skipped important steps. In all, the administration lost 57 percent of cases challenging its environmental policies, a far higher percentage than previous administrations, according to a database from New York University’s Institute for Political Integrity.
“The first Trump administration came in unprepared to take charge,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, a former top EPA official under President George W. Bush 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 be more receptive to the new administration. With three Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump, the court now has a conservative supermajority that has shown deep skepticism toward environmental regulation. The court has at times blocked rules that were still being tried in lower courts or before they were implemented.
In June, the Supreme Court struck down the so-called Chevron doctrine, which for 40 years had held that courts should side with government agencies when a law was unclear. The ruling could undermine the regulatory authority of many federal agencies. The Supreme Court also halted EPA rules limiting pollution from smokestacks that span state lines, struck down the agency’s expanded protection of millions of acres of wetlands and curtailed its ability to regulate power plant emissions.
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“It’s a judiciary that’s much more friendly to a new Trump administration and its allies,” said Jody Freeman, director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School. “They’re going to encounter not only less resistance in the courts, on average, but some appetite to do the things they want to do.”
To be sure, experts agreed that a second Trump administration would not have complete freedom of action. For example, many EPA rules are litigated in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where two-thirds of the current judges were appointed by Democrats. And in some cases, the Supreme Court’s reversal of Chevron could make it harder to water down existing regulations, Holmstead said.
Some Republicans also downplayed Project 2025, arguing that many businesses are unwilling to dismantle the EPA.
“Industry is no longer debating whether climate change is happening; many are actively working on the energy transition and don’t necessarily want to see climate work eliminated from agencies,” said Samantha Dravis, who served as EPA’s policy chief in the Trump administration.
Environmental groups are preparing to fight. Many say they are studying Project 2025 and crafting legal arguments that could sway conservative-leaning courts. The Natural Resources Defense Council says it won 89 percent of its 163 lawsuits against the first Trump administration.
“The reason we win these cases is because presidents are required to follow the law, and that’s not going to change with an election,” said Michael Wall, head of litigation for the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund. “We have every reason to believe they learned lessons from the first term, but it’s also true that we learned lessons from their first term.”
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