The environmental policy of the first Donald Trump administration represented a shift from the policy priorities and goals of the preceding Barack Obama administration. Where President Obama's environmental agenda prioritized the reduction of carbon emissions through the use of renewable energy with the goal of conserving the environment for future generations, the Trump administration policy was for the US to attain energy independence based on fossil fuel use and to rescind many environmental regulations. By the end of Trump's term, his administration had rolled back 98 environmental rules and regulations, leaving an additional 14 rollbacks still in progress. As of early 2021, the Biden administration was making a public accounting of regulatory decisions under the Trump administration that had been influenced by politics rather than science.
The Trump administration supported energy development on federal land, including gas and oil drilling in national forests and near national monuments and parks. Soon after taking office, Trump began to implement his "America First Energy Plan" and signed executive orders to approve two controversial oil pipelines. In 2018, the Department of the Interior announced plans to allow drilling in nearly all U.S. waters, the largest expansion of offshore oil and gas leasing ever proposed. In 2019, the Administration completed plans for opening the entire coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
Trump and his cabinet appointees did not believe the consensus of most scientists that climate change will have catastrophic impacts nor that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to climate change. Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, leaving the U.S. one of two nations that were not part of the agreement. He avoided environmental discussions at both the 44th G7 summit held in Canada and the 45th G7 summit held in France by departing early from these conferences. In September 2019, the Trump administration replaced the Obama-era Clean Power Plan with the Affordable Clean Energy rule, which did not cap emissions. In April 2020, he issued his new vehicle emissions standards, which were projected to result in an additional billion tons of carbon dioxide, increasing annual U.S. emissions by about one-fifth. In 2020, environmentalists feared that a successful reelection of Trump could have resulted in severe and irreversible changes in the climate.
The administration repealed the Clean Water Rule and rewrote the EPA's pollution-control policies—including policies on chemicals known to be serious health risks—particularly benefiting the chemicals industry. A 2018 analysis reported that the Trump administration's rollbacks and proposed reversals of environmental rules would likely "cost the lives of over 80,000 US residents per decade and lead to respiratory problems for many more than 1 million people."
Background
At a Republican primary debate in Detroit on March 3, 2016, Trump said: "Department of Environmental Protection: We are going to get rid of it in almost every form." During the campaign, Trump expressed the view that global warming and cooling is a natural process. He often described global warming as a "hoax"; and sometimes attributed the "hoax" to the Chinese government as a plot to sabotage American manufacturing, but later claimed that had been a joke. As a candidate Trump said he would rescind Obama's Climate Action Plan, cancel U.S. participation in the Paris Climate Agreement, and stop all U.S. payments towards United Nations global warming programs.
Within days after taking office, he invited American manufacturers to suggest which regulations should be eliminated; industry leaders submitted 168 comments, of which nearly half targeted Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules. Within his first couple months in office, he required a federal review of the Clean Water Rule and the Clean Power Plan.
He did not attend the climate discussions held during both the 2018 and 2019 G7 meetings, the only G7 leader not in attendance.
Appointments
Trump's cabinet nominees reflect his desire to scale back federal environmental regulation and to promote domestic production of coal, oil, and natural gas. In some cases his appointees had a history of conflict with the agencies they now lead. Although the scientific conclusion is that "it is extremely likely (95 to 100 percent probable) that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," Trump's department head appointees do not agree that global warming has been man-made.
President Trump's appointments to key agencies dealing in energy and environmental policy reflect his commitment to deregulation, particularly of the fossil fuel industry. Three of the four chair-level members of Trump's first transition team commissioned to draw up a list of proposals to guide his Native American policies had links to the oil industry. In July 2018, amid numerous ethics investigations, Trump's first appointment for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, resigned and was replaced by Andrew Wheeler.
First EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt
As the attorney general of Oklahoma, Trump's choice of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt challenged EPA regulations in court more than a dozen times. With some cases still pending, Pruitt declined to say if he would recuse himself with regard to those suits. Pruitt hired former Oklahoma banker Albert Kelly to head the Superfund program, which is responsible for cleaning up the nation's most contaminated land. Kelly completely lacked any experience with environmental issues, and had just received a lifetime ban from working in banking, his career until then, due to "unfitness to serve".
Pruitt said he planned to prioritize state and local control over federal land use and ease regulations on the environmental impacts of industries. A March 2017 executive order allowed Pruitt to start a review process of the Obama administration's regulations of the coal industry, reflecting Trump's repeated promises to support the coal industry and "bring back jobs" in coal mining. Such changes are likely to affect America's ability to meet the climate emission goals of the Paris Agreement.
In April 2018, Pruitt drew criticism for what some consider to be the excessive security expenditures which he had requested. Trump defended Pruitt in a tweet stating, "Record clean Air & Water while saving USA Billions of Dollars." However, according to PolitiFact no new figures on air quality have been released since 2016. To state the nation's waters as being at record clean levels is also inaccurate since while a report was issued in 2017, the information was gathered in 2012 or earlier. Commenting on Pruitt's claim that his excessive security expenses are related to his need for security, The New York Times commented that the high expenses appear to be "driven more by a desire to avoid tough questions from the public than by concerns about security." In April 2018, thirty-nine members of the Senate and more than 130 members of the House of Representatives called for Pruitt's resignation.
On July 5, 2018, President Trump accepted Pruitt's resignation. At the time of his resignation Pruitt was facing numerous ethics investigations.
Second EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler
In 2017 Trump nominated Andrew Wheeler to be the deputy administrator of the EPA. Wheeler has worked as a coal industry lobbyist, specializing in energy and environmental policy. He is a critic of nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions and has supported the continued use of fossil fuels. The Senate rejected him in 2017 and Trump resubmitted his name in January 2018. His nomination was confirmed on April 12, 2018, by a mostly party line vote of 53–45, that included three Democratic senators.Senate confirms a former coal lobbyist as Scott Pruitt's second-in-command at EPA , The Washington Post, Steven Mufson, Brady Dennis & Dino Grandoni, April 12, 2018. Retrieved April 13, 2018. Following Pruitt's resignation, Wheeler was appointed to head the EPA on July 5, 2018.
Following his appointment Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune commented, "He fought against safeguards to limit mercury poisoning. He fought against protections to limit the amount of ozone in our skies. He fought against air pollution from neighboring states. He's a climate denier. So, sadly, he fits in well with EPA leadership."
Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is tasked with developing technology for better and more efficient energy sources as well as energy education. Trump chose Rick Perry to head the department, who had called for eliminating it when he was running for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. His confirmation as head of the Department of Energy was a source of contention among Democrats due to his previous denial of man-made climate change and his close ties to the Texas oil and gas industry. During his confirmation hearing, Perry said he regretted his promise to abolish the Department of Energy.
In March 2017, Perry met with Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray and coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler who would later replace Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA. Murray submitted a confidential "action plan" at the meeting. In an interview with the Associated Press (AP) Simon Edelman, who was at the time a government photographer who was taking photos of the meeting, the actions Murray wanted the Trump administration to take "included replacing members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accords and revoking the Clean Power Plan." He said that he was fired shortly after he released the photographs of the meeting. A copy of the plan was obtained by The New York Times and the AP in January 2018. They reported that "it mirrors policy later pushed by the Trump administration."
Department of the Interior
Ryan Zinke was appointed Secretary of the Interior in 2017. Following his appointment, Zinke said that he had made "probably the greatest reorganization in the history of the Department of the Interior." Some scientists charged that some of the staff changes were politically motivated. Zinke supported Trump's plan to reduce the DOI budget by $1.6 billion (~$ in ) in 2018, which would have caused roughly 4,000 employees to lose their jobs and a rollback of many of the regulations that Obama put in place. When questioned about global warming during his senate confirmation hearing, Zinke replied, "I don't know definitively, there's a lot of debate on both sides of the aisle."
In January 2019, Zinke was replaced with David Bernhardt, an attorney and oil industry lobbyist who had been serving as Trump's United States Deputy Secretary of the Interior since 2017. At his confirmation hearing, speaking regarding his policy decisions related to global warming he said, "We're going to look at the science whatever it is, but ... policy decisions are made – this president ran and he won on a particular perspective." During Bernhardt's tenure as deputy secretary and acting secretary, the department embarked on a program of deregulation and substantially increased fossil fuel sales on public land. In March 2019, Politico reported that heads of the oil industry lobbyist group Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) boasted about their ties to Bernhardt.
Department of Agriculture