When Donald Trump was inaugurated for the first time, in January, 2017, Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law launched the Climate Deregulation Tracker. Four years and a hundred and seventy-six entries later, when Joe Biden took office, the tool was renamed the Climate Reregulation Tracker.Last month, the tool was renamed again: it’s now the Climate Backtracker. In each of the tool’s three iterations, “our expectations are being fulfilled,” Michael Gerrard, a Columbia Law School professor and the Sabin Center’s faculty director, observed the other day. Since Trump was inaugurated (again), his Administration has taken thirty-three climate-backtracking actions. Most of these have been in the form of executive orders, and most of these E.O.s have been aimed at either boosting fossil-fuel production or crippling programs that might reduce fossil-fuel use. “They’re doing everything possible to increase both the demand for and the supply of fossil fuels,” Gerrard said. “That’s the theme that runs throughout.”Like New Year’s resolutions, E.O.s are largely aspirational; carrying them out usually requires federal agencies to publish new rules, a painstaking and time-consuming process. In Trump’s first term, new environmental rules were often sloppily drafted, and when they were challenged in court, as they invariably were, the Administration frequently lost. It is too early to know whether the second Trump Administration will be any more careful or any more successful with the judiciary. But experts say that what seems to distinguish the second Trump Presidency when it comes to climate change—or, really, any policy issue—is its willingness to flout administrative law.“This is a very different and more dangerous Administration than the first time around,” Rachel Cleetus, the policy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Climate and Energy program, said. Eight years ago, Cleetus continued, “when we saw the executive orders around funding freezes for a range of climate and energy priorities, the assumption was that we would still have the law obeyed, with Congress having the power of the purse. But in the last three weeks we’ve seen that shredded.”Consider the case of the Inflation Reduction Act, the major piece of climate legislation approved during Biden’s term. The Biden Administration, in its final months, rushed to commit funds appropriated under the act, but, according to an analysis by the Washington Post, of the fifty billion dollars’ worth of grants the Administration awarded, only eighteen billion dollars have actually been paid out. Trump, on his first day back in office, issued an E.O. titled “Unleashing American Energy” that, among its numerous provisions, directed federal agencies to “pause” I.R.A. spending. This was soon followed by a directive from the Office of Management and Budget which instructed all federal agencies to freeze disbursements until they cou
Mer. Feb 12th, 2025
