TRUMP, 100 DAYS TO RESET US ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES

Donald Trump's anti-environmentalist crusade seems to have no end. He had promised to end any environmental regulation to the Oil & Gas sector during his election campaign, in exchange for massive funding. It has also promised to the MAGA (Make America Great Again) crowd, who have always been climate-skeptical and hostile to any anti-free market regulation. From proclamations such as "let's go back to plastic", to the de-listing of the USAID cooperation and development agency, from the removal of any reference to climate change on the websites of American ministries and agencies to the expansion of Oil & Gas extraction areas, Trump's first 100 days are wreaking havoc on America's ecological transition, on par with geopolitics and trade. 

"This campaign will undo decades of bipartisan and international efforts to curb greenhouse gases and, if unchecked, will cause the planet to warm far beyond manageable levels," Jillian Blanchard, who heads the climate change programme of Lawyers for Good Government, a non-profit watchdog group, told E&E. A dastardly action that will become a mortgage on the future of the nation and all humanity. 

Let us look at Donald Trump's most relevant actions on America's ecological transition, climate and nature conservation. 

 

Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and elimination of the 30by30 on biodiversity 

One of the first acts of the Trump administration was the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. It had already done so in 2016, then Joe Biden decided to rejoin the COP. The executive order, signed 20 January 2025, formalized the country's second exit from the international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and become effective in 2026. The decision was taken to protect the national economy from what Trump defined "unfair environmental constraints". 

Although the US is not a signatory to the Global Biodiversity Framework (it has never joined the Convention on Biological Diversity), Joe Biden had introduced legislation to protect at least 30 per cent of US soil and oceans, a move that had given hope that the US would soon be back in the Convention. Not for Trump. Nature conservation, an American trademark, the first nation to have created wilderness and natural parks, thanks to John Muir and Aldo Leopold, is not on the President’s list. The first act? Firing 2,700 rangers and nature conservation experts. 

 

The IRA stop 

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a US law passed by former President Joe Biden that provides for significant investment in renewable energy and the green transition, with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting the use of green technologies. The pro-business energy transition does not seem to please Trump. He has halted federal funding for such projects, freezing IRA funds for electric vehicle infrastructure and other sustainable technologies. 

The Trump administration has also eliminated the vehicle emission standards introduced by the previous administration, arguing that these regulations imposed excessive burdens on the automobile industry. In doing so, it removed incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles. At the end of February, however, he had to take some steps backwards, such as the 500 million US $ in funding for the purchase of electric school buses. These funds, approved by Congress and overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, had been blocked since January. 


Photo by © abc NEWS | article "Biden takes victory lap on Inflation Reduction Act amid 2024 'Bidenomics' push"

 

Blocking offshore wind projects 

With another executive order, Trump suspended federal concessions for new offshore wind energy projects, citing economic and logistical concerns. This decision halted the development of marine wind farms, limiting opportunities for renewable energy expansion in the US. Dozens of lawsuits against the White House are expected.  

In 2021, the Biden administration had set a national offshore wind target of 30 gigawatts of capacity in 2030 and 110 gigawatts by 2050. It envisaged an industry capable of supporting 77,000 jobs and powering 10 million homes with clean energy. Now it is at a standstill. A vessel port established for offshore wind development in New Jersey, heralded as the starting hub for the industry's planned expansion on the US East Coast, is being refitted; billions of dollars of contracts for new offshore wind support vessels have been cancelled and manufacturers are abandoning their plans, according to a Reuters analysis. 

 

Declaration of national energy emergency 

On the first day of his presidency, Trump declared a national energy emergency, claiming that domestic energy production was insufficient to meet the country's needs. This executive order authorised the expansion of fossil fuel extraction on federal lands and coastal waters, with the aim of increasing oil and natural gas production. The measure also suspended several environmental regulations to accelerate energy projects, such as the Clean Water Act (passed by Republican Richard Nixon) and the Endangered Species Act, two highly innovative pieces of legislation for their time. Some of the projects will significantly impact America's natural ecosystems. Like the 60-kilometre pipeline in Louisiana that would affect about 95 hectares of wetlands, including swamps near the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge. Or the pipeline under Lake Michigan, source of drinking water for over 10 million people. The mega-pipepline Keystone XL is under revision. Under the guise of emergency, all environmental restrictions will be easily bypassed, even in particularly sensitive areas like Alaska.  

 

Assault on science 

The first to fall under Trump's denialist axe was the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, which saw hundreds of experts fired to make way for lobbyists, officials and lawyers linked to the American Chemistry Council and the American Petroleum Institute, two pro-fossil fuel lobbies. 

Gone from the homepage is the section on climate change, as outlined in the obscure Project 2025, the ideological matrix of the Trumpian hounds. At the head of NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which according to Project 2025 'should be dismantled') Trump has put Neil Jacobs, who became notorious for altering the predictions on the path of Hurricane Dorian under pressure from Trump himself and who is always ready to prioritise politics over science. 

As if that were not enough, Elon Musk's group of minions, the infamous DOGE team, broke into the NOAA offices on February 5th to enter the servers, obtain all confidential access and take possession of the information on the purged. An abuse of power and a real assault on the freedom of science. Those who witnessed the scene described it to CNN as an 'illegitimate raid' and unauthorised. Similar scenes occurred at the Department of Education, the Treasury (where they were blocked by a federal judge), the Interior and the Pentagon, as announced by Trump himself, who does not enjoy wide support within the military world. 

Many scientists fear that the assault on NOAA and the removal of climate from many federal sites could be the first signs of the privatisation of weather and climate data collection by selling off institutions such as the National Weather Service or the Hurricane Center. This is a strategy to weaken the rigorous and independent climate and weather analysis that has always been the pride of the United States, which established the first centre for analysing the atmosphere in Mauna Loa in 1965, collecting data on average concentrations of carbon dioxide and other gases. 

An article written by Emanuele Bompan