The Trump Administration repealed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) landmark 2009 endangerment finding on Thursday, dismantling the legal framework that gives the government power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. It’s the administration’s biggest climate rollback to date—but it’s not the only anti-climate move President Donald Trump and Republican officials have made recently.
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At a White House event on Wednesday, Feb. 12, Trump announced that he had ordered the Pentagon to purchase more coal-based electricity, and that the Department of Energy would allocate $175 million in funding for six projects to upgrade coal plants in four states.
The announcement comes at a price. Of all fossil fuels, coal emits the most carbon dioxide per unit of energy, and burning it releases deadly pollution into the air. Research from the energy consulting group Grid Strategies also found that the Trump Administration’s push to keep coal plants open could cost U.S. utility customers between $3-6 billion by the end of 2028. That’s because coal is also among the most costly power sources. In the U.S., 99% of coal plants are more expensive to run than it would be to replace them with wind or solar.
“People and businesses across the country are struggling with rapidly escalating electricity costs,” Julie McNamara, associate policy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement following Trump’s Wednesday decision. “The country has real solutions at hand—yet instead of pushing ahead with investments in the fastest, cheapest, cleanest resources available, the Trump Administration is actively doing everything it can to stop the deployment of new solar and wind projects, to stop investments in energy efficiency, and to stop the buildout of modern grid infrastructure.”
Read more: The History of the Endangerment Finding
In another recent setback to environmental protections, the Federal Judicial Center deleted a chapter on climate change from a judicial reference manual last Friday. This came after facing pressure from Republican state attorneys general, more than 20 of which signed a letter to the House and Senate judiciary committees stating that the manual was an “inappropriate attempt to rig case outcomes in favor of one side.” The guide is widely used and cited by legal clerks and justices when tackling important scientific questions they face in their decisions. It also includes chapters on other subjects like artificial intelligence, DNA identification, and epidemiology.
The same day, President Trump signed a proclamation on Feb. 6 to allow commercial fishing in the only marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean—a stretch of over 4,000 square miles that’s home to dolphins, endangered whales, sea turtles, and ancient deep-sea corals. “I find that appropriately managed commercial fishing would not put the objects of historic and scientific interest that the monument protects at risk,” he wrote in the proclamation.
However, environmentalists counter that commercial fishing will impact the ecosystem.
“Northeast Canyons and Seamounts is a truly special place: a living scientific laboratory, a refuge for creatures as varied as cold-water corals and sperm whales,” Brad Sewell, the managing director of oceans at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. “Trump’s move to dismantle those protections is unlawful, and we’re confident that it won’t stand.”
Since taking office last year, President Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and a “con job,” has been quick to roll back a number of climate policies. Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law’s “Climate Backtracker,” has logged over 300 efforts from the administration to scale back or eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures—ranging from the withdrawal from the Paris Accords to opening up millions of acres in national forests for road construction and development.
Despite legal challenges to many efforts, the administration shows no sign of changing direction. On Wednesday, Trump was given a trophy by the Washington Coal Club lobby group in the shape of a miner, inscribed with the words “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.”
McNamara, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said, “The art of the deal: for President Trump, a trophy; for real people, real costs.”
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