Environmental organizations prepare to fight Trump's anti-environmental agenda

Trump is expected to be more organized and aggressive against the environment

Trump and the environment

During his previous tenure as president, Trump reduced protections for Threatened and Endangered species; pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord; appointed fossil fuel industry-friendly climate deniers to key government positions; and in all rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations that protect air, water, the natural world, and public health.

Trump is signaling that his next administration will be as aggressive or more so in its assault on the environment.He chose former GOP congressman Lee Zeldinto head the Environmental Protection Agency. During his tenure in Congress, Zeldin supported environmental legislation only 14 percent of the time, according to the League of Conservation Voters.

The response

The Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit that protects wildlife, especially endangered species, fought the previous Trump administration on a number of fronts, opposing the granting of drilling leases in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and even going so far as to urge the present Biden administration to remove the border wall that was constructed during the previous Trump administration.

Kierán Suckling, Executive Director of the Center, expects the anti-environmental agenda of the second Trump administration to be more aggressive and more coherently enacted than that of Trump’s first tenure as president. He sees the creation of Project 2025 as part of this more organized and concerted effort. “It was developed less as a cooperative effort with Trump than as an external template to constrain his chaotic inclinations and keep him focused on clear goals,” Suckling says. “This will make his second term much more dangerous to the planet.”

Suckling sees Trump’s corporate backers pushing him to appoint more competent, bureaucratically savvy agency heads this time around. “While he destroyed some local forest, desert and wetland areas, his first term failed overall to solidify long-term anti-environmental policies because his agency appointees were as clownish and bureaucratically incompetent as himself.” Nonetheless, Suckling is resolved to continue the fight for the natural world, saying, “Trump 2.0 is going to get twice the fight from the protectors of our planet, wildlife and basic human rights. This country’s bedrock environmental laws stand strong. We’re more prepared than ever to block the disastrous Trump policies we know are coming.”

Since 1970, the Natural Resources Defense Council has nationally and internationally fought for a cleaner environment, with a number of their campaigns and court battles resulting in profound benefits for the environment. In 1973, their case against the EPA resulted in the removal of lead from gasoline.

The NRDC sued the previous Trump administration over its efforts to dismantle the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan and its attempt to relax rules governing the release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. In all, the NRDC filed 163 cases against the Trump administration, wining almost 90 percent of those cases.

On November 6th, the day after the election, Manish Bapna, president of NRDC, appealed to all Americans’ respect for the rule of law, saying, “[T]he Constitution requires the president to follow federal laws. If he fails to faithfully carry out those laws, we have the constitutional right to petition our courts to compel him to do so – and we’re prepared to do just that.”

The American Bird Conservancy, which focuses on conserving bird species and their habitats throughout the Americas, is concerned about the greater sage grouse and its fate under the new Trump administration. Only about 150,000 of these birds remain, and although their numbers are decreasing, the greater sage grouse still hasn’t received protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The greater sage grouse has long been in the crosshairs of the oil and gas industry. Much of its habitat, the sagebrush plains of the American West and Southwest, is where the oil and gas industry wants to establish more drilling. This could spell disaster for the greater sage grouse, as it is sensitive to habitat disturbances.

The Conservancy expressed its dismay at the current level of protection given the sage grouse and the prospects for further drilling under a new Trump administration. “We are disappointed that the Bureau of Land Management’s plans provide the highest level of protection for only 4 million acres of priority sagebrush habitat,” said Steve Holmer, Vice President of Policy at American Bird Conservancy. “The 2015 plans protect 11 million acres of sagebrush focal areas so this is not a step forward given the history of exceptions routinely being granted to drill in priority grouse habitat.”

Taking action on a smaller scale

Climate scientist and activist Katharine Hayhoe emphasizes that finding connections on a more local level can lead to positive change for the climate, no matter who is in the White House. She says, “Research has shown that the closer we are geographically, the easier it is to find bipartisan solutions that people can get on board with at the local level rather than the federal level. So I am really leaning into making sure that local decision-makers and regional decision-makers know why this matters and what solutions look like.”

Individuals are also resisting the plans Trump has for our environment. In response to Trump’s election, Katherine Rundell, a bestselling writer of children’s and adult’s books says she will donate “in perpetuity” 100 percent of her author’s royalties from Vanishing Treasures, her 2022 book on endangered species, to climate organizations. So far, sales have totaled more than $12,000. “The election of a climate-change denier to the U.S.` presidency is a catastrophe for all of us,” the British author told The Guardian. “It comes at a time when the planet has never more urgently needed our protection.”