Fighting the Trump administration’s environmental agenda
Here’s what comes next.
In the past few weeks, the Trump administration has ramped up its efforts to make good on campaign promises to dismantle President Obama’s environmental legacy.
Congressional Republicans have enthusiastically hopped on board, seizing the opportunity to repeal any environmental rules vulnerable under the Congressional Review Act and gunning to slash funding for critical environmental and scientific agencies and programs. The Trump Administration appointed Scott Pruitt, a man with well-established ties to the fossil fuel industry and a history of suing the Environmental Protection Agency, to chair the Environmental Protection Agency. On Wednesday morning, the Republican leadership of the House Science Committee convened a hearing for the sole purpose of challenging widely accepted climate science.
And this past Tuesday, surrounded by coal miners and bosses, Trump issued an executive order on “energy independence” which, among other things, places President Obama’s landmark Clean Power Plan directly in the line of fire and temporarily lifts the moratorium on new coal leasing on federal public lands.
Most of these developments have been months in the making. Trump and Congressional Republicans have never been quiet about their environmental agenda — namely, doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industry and making grandiose but ultimately empty gestures to prop up coal.
Bottom line: it’s been a discouraging few months. This week alone has been bruising, and we’re in for a tough fight going forward.
But the persistently negative headlines, emphasizing only the administration’s determination to wreak havoc on our environment, are misleading and can be counterproductive. Not because they misstate the priorities of Trump’s White House and Congressional Republicans; those are well established. But we can’t lose sight of D.C.’s real influence, or lack thereof, over energy markets and international environmental commitments — or of the power our towns, cities, and states can wield in this fight.
So, a few things to consider:
Repealing laws takes time — and the more time we have, the greater the likelihood that legal and advocacy battles will succeed. Trump doesn’t have the authority to erase the Clean Power Plan, or any other environmental laws, with a simple sweep of his pen. Any attempts to eliminate major Obama era environmental reforms will involve long, protracted legal battles, and the first of these are already underway. A coalition of green organizations has already filed an initial suit against the federal government over Trump’s latest executive order, targeting the newly-lifted moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands first. Other groups have similarly taken steps to take the Trump administration to court over its decision to revive the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, and more cases will follow. Seek out groups like Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council who are taking these fights to court; they will continue to need our support.
Market forces can, and will, be made to work in the environment’s favor. Nearly half the country’s coal plants have, in recent years, been retired or committed to retiring, with companies noting that consumer demand for cleaner fuel sources and the rising relative costs of using coal are increasingly rendering these plants a liability (even without the Clean Power Plan in effect yet). Despite Trump’s grand promises, coal mining isn’t about to witness a U.S. renaissance, or even an international one. At best, recent moves by Congress and the White House to roll back coal industry regulations will slow the inevitable shuttering of mines and plants across the country, because the industry’s most pressing problem in the U.S. isn’t regulation, it’s natural gas. As the most accessible coal veins run dry, natural gas is rapidly outpacing coal as our cheapest domestic energy source. In the meantime, alternative energy industries are employing more U.S. workers every year; solar now employs more people than coal, oil, and gas in 41 states. New coal plant construction around the world dropped by nearly two-thirds this past year alone, while a record amount of coal power station capacity was retired during that same period. Market forces (and geography) portend an inevitable death for the U.S. coal industry, and the longer our transition away from coal is put off or ignored, the more communities will suffer — coal communities first and foremost.
Meanwhile, American companies are continuing to respond to consumer demands for cleaner, greener business practices. This week, while Trump was signing his latest executive order and Republicans on the House Science Committee were attempting to put climate science on trial, 81 major U.S. corporations who signed the American Business Act on Climate in 2015, companies like Apple and General Electric, reasserted their commitment to the Paris Agreement. As former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg noted this morning in a NY Times op-ed: “No mandate from Washington is forcing these companies to act — just their own self-interest.”
States and cities have more power than you might think. The Trump White House and Congressional Republicans may be prepared to abdicate U.S. leadership on green issues for the foreseeable future, but many of our country’s largest states and cities are ready to put up a fight. California, our most populous state and the world’s 6th largest economy, is leading the charge. The Golden State’s legislature just introduced a bill pledging to enforce critical federal environmental laws — even if Trump’s EPA ceases to do so. Just a few weeks ago, state leaders also announced that despite the White House’s decision to roll back the Obama administration’s 2025 CAFE standards for fuel efficiency nationally, California — the nation’s largest state market for vehicles — will continue to hold manufacturers to those targets, and is prepared to go to court to preserve their right to do so. Several other states, including New York and Maine, have made similar declarations, citing the myriad public health challenges caused by air pollution within their own borders. Auto manufacturers will be hard pressed to take advantage of the Trump administration’s leniency if states won’t allow less efficient cars to be sold.
Major U.S. cities remain similarly committed to reducing emissions, increasing energy efficiency, and upholding our international climate policy commitments. Over 130 U.S. cities have signed on to the Global Compact of Mayors, an association dedicated to reaching international climate policy goals; and even while the Trump administration takes aim at the Clean Power Plan, 62 U.S. cities are already on track to meet or exceed existing 2050 emissions goals. 37 cities, including New York, Chicago, Atlanta, have set emissions reductions goals of 80 percent or higher during that timeframe. U.S. cities account for nearly two thirds of our nation’s carbon emissions; if we continue to hold our home cities and/or state capitals accountable, the U.S. will continue to move forward — with or without the Trump administration.
Chances are that recent headlines have left many of you who care about our environment, public health, and climate change with a nagging sense of helplessness, even dread. I’ve felt it, too.
But the worst case scenario now is that people see the headlines and feel like the odds are insurmountable. They’re not. They’re not even stacked in the other guys’ favor. There are challenging times ahead, but we’re better equipped than ever to fight the battles that need to be fought, and none of us are fighting alone. Look for the doers, and look to your own backyards — because that’s where the victories will happen tomorrow, and the next day. It won’t be easy, and success won’t come without a fight — but we’re up for the challenge. Our future depends on it.
