The following are excerpts from articles written during or shortly after the Trump administration. Parenthetical and bracketed inserts are mine.
The Trump administration’s major environmental deregulations. By Cayli Baker/Brookings, December 15, 2020.
Over the last four years, the Trump administration has taken on a massive deregulatory effort… The Trump administration has:
replaced the Clean Power Plan (CPP),
redefined critical terms under the Endangered Species Act,
lifted oil and natural gas extraction bans, weakened the Coal Ash Rule, which regulates the disposal of toxic coal waste, and revised Mercury and Air Toxic Standards–just to name a few.
EPA’s (2018) Regulatory Impact Analysis predicted that, relative to CPP, the replacement rule would increase CO2 emissions by over 60 million short tons by 2030.
The administration also notably lowered the social cost of methane to $55 per metric ton, significantly below the Obama-era estimate of $1,400. Such a reduction makes it easier for the administration to forgo future regulations, as they are more likely to fail the cost benefit requirements under [a 1993 Executive Order].
The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List. By Nadia Popovich, Livia Albeck-Ripka and Kendra Pierre-Pierce/ New York Times. January 20, 2021.
In all, a New York Times analysis, based on research from Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School and other sources, counts nearly 100 environmental rules officially reversed, revoked or otherwise rolled back under Mr. Trump.
Many of the rollbacks have been challenged in court by states, environmental groups and others, and some have already been struck down. In the final days of Mr. Trump’s term, a federal appeals court overturned a plan to relax Obama-era restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions from coal- and natural gas-burning power plants…
[Examples of Trump Administration Environmental Rule Changes]:
Withdrew the legal justification for an Obama-era rule that limited mercury emissions from coal power plants.
Canceled a requirement for oil and gas companies to report methane emissions.
Relaxed air pollution regulations for a handful of plants that burn waste coal for electricity.
Revoked a directive for federal agencies to minimize impacts on water, wildlife, land and other natural resources when approving development projects.
Withdrew an Obama-era order to consider climate change in the management of natural resources in national parks.
Revised the environmental review process for Forest Service projects to automatically exempt certain categories of projects, including those under 2,800 acres.
Rolled back a roughly 40-year-old interpretation of a policy aimed at protecting migratory birds. The rule imposed fines and other penalties on companies who accidentally kill birds through their actions, including oil spills and toxic pesticide applications.
Ended the automatic application of full protections for ‘threatened’ plants and animals, the classification one step below ‘endangered’ in the Endangered Species Act.
Overturned a ban on the hunting of predators in Alaskan wildlife refuges.
Removed restrictions on commercial fishing in a protected marine preserve southeast of Cape Cod that is home to rare corals and a number of endangered sea animals.
Loosened fishing restrictions intended to reduce bycatch of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna.
Revoked a rule that prevented coal companies from dumping mining debris into local streams.
Narrowed pesticide application buffer zones that are intended to protect farmworkers and bystanders from accidental exposure.
Limited the scientific and medical research the EPA can use to determine public health regulations, de-emphasizing studies that do not make their underlying data publicly available. Scientists widely criticized the proposal, saying it would effectively block the agency from considering landmark research that relies on confidential health data.
Reversed restrictions on the sale of plastic water bottles in national parks designed to cut down on litter, despite a Park Service report (2017) that the effort worked.
Trump Cuts EPA Budget Again. Sierra Club. February 12, 2020
President Trump's budget proposal for fiscal year 2021 contains a 26 percent cut to funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This would bring the agency’s funding to only $6.7 billion, down from $9.1 billion in 2020. The budget would eliminate almost 50 programs…
The President’s budget would cut federal funding for Superfund sites by $113 million to $1.1 million. A recent report showed that the EPA has the largest backlog of toxic waste cleanups in 15 years.
Trump is planning to cut the Department of Interior Budget. The Bureau of Land Management will lose about $144 million, and the Fish and Wildlife Service would lose $581 million compared to its 2020 budget. The recently reauthorized Land and Water Conservation Fund would be slashed by nearly 97 percent.
Latest Trump proposal on endangered species could limit future habitat, critics say. By Rebecca Beitsch/The Hill. July 31, 2020.
An advance copy of the proposal from the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) that was obtained by The Hill writes that habitats are “the physical places that individuals of a species depend upon to carry out one or more life processes. Habitat includes areas with existing attributes that have the capacity to support individuals of the species.”
But environmental groups say the new definition being proposed by FWS will allow the agency to block setting aside any land that isn’t currently habitat but might be needed in the future, particularly as the climate changes.
“It sounds kind of innocuous,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, “But what this essentially says is if an area is degraded, if it can no longer support endangered species without restoration, then it couldn’t be protected.”
“The purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to help endangered species flourish and expand back into their former habitats. If this rule were in place fifty years ago, the bald eagle would have been kept at death’s door in perpetuity, limited to a few square miles here and there...” House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.)
Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, said the latest proposal doesn’t “meet the intent of the Endangered Species Act, which recognizes that areas beyond those that are currently occupied may need to be protected to recover species,” adding the rule will “exclude areas that would be suitable with minimal restoration or those areas that may be needed to recover species in the age of climate change.”
The environmental legacy of President Trump. By Elizabeth Bomberg/Policy Studies (2021).
Despite its scope, Trump’s regulatory legacy is already fading. Many of these proposed changes began to unravel even during Trump’s term. Institutional scholars remind us how less visible institutional players – civil servants and bureaucrats – can exercise discretion in both the interpretation and enforcement of institutional rules and norms. Agencies do not simply follow the cues of their presidential masters, but rather defend their own agencies’ interests.
During the Trump Administration many bureaucrats used this ability to mitigate or stifle Trump’s regulatory changes… Indeed the actions were described by federal career scientists themselves as “a civic and professional duty, done to ensure that science informs policy outcomes and protects the public”.
A second reason Trump’s regulatory legacy is likely to fade is that his rollbacks and reversals were primarily implemented through executive orders. Executive orders are signed – and revoked – by presidential action alone. They can be used to bypass Congress, but then enjoy neither the durability nor stability of actual Congressional legislation. That means they can themselves be overturned by subsequent executive action.