Smoke stacks from the Hugh L. Spurlock Generating Station on June 12, 2025 in Maysville, Kentucky. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

A FACT:

Since January 2025, the US president and cabinet officials have done more damage to the environment of the United States than any other single, concerted set of actions in the history of the nation. More than five decades of federal legislation and rulemaking have been trashed or weakened. Scientific research, present and future, has been impaired. With the rationale of saving money, making consumer goods more affordable, or lifting “outdated” or “burdensome” regulations, federal actions of the last 20 months have instead benefited special interests and a small number of corporations and companies.

A SELECTIVE LIST OF FEDERAL ACTIONS

United States Environmental Protection Agency logo and U.S. flag are seen in this illustration taken April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration 

**Denying the primary role of the Environmental Protection Agency

• Enfeeblement of the National Environmental Policy Act
• Large staff reductions, experts replaced or ignored
• Permitting use of untested chemicals

**Gutting the Endangered Species Act

• Habitat destruction and incidental death or injury no longer illegal, only direct, intentional killing, though most harm to endangered species comes from habitat destruction and “incidental take”
• Continued damage to biodiversity
• Encroachments on US wetlands, loosening their protections

**Attack on federal lands

• Rescinding the Roadless Rule; altering the Forest Service Travel Management Plan
• Disastrous reorganizations and staff cuts at National Park Service and Forest Service
• Climate change has increased wildfires, which further boost climate change and pollute air
• Bogus timber “emergency” declared
• Reduced size of, or attempted to eliminate, National Monuments
• Attempting to build roads through Wilderness temporarily stopped by Federal courts

**Attack on climate law and renewable energy

• Near elimination of US tax credits for EVs, solar panels, heat pumps
• Rescinded the Endangerment Finding, which since 2009 had provided the legal justification for regulating greenhouse gases under the terms of the Clean Air Act
• Provided new waivers for coal power plants, which increase mercury, arsenic, and air pollution, resulting in more pulmonary and cardiovascular illness and deaths
• EPA to cancel greenhouse gas limits on coal and gas (methane) power plants—and try to prevent future administrations from reinstating them
• Rescinded greenhouse gas emissions standards for US vehicles
• Drastically reduced standards for vehicle gas mileage
• Bought-out planned wind power projects with tax dollars while losing American jobs
• Promoting gas and oil drilling, including in the Arctic and 1.2 billion acres of ocean
• Pulled US out of Paris Climate Accord
• August 2026 was the hottest month on record for entire world; 1.5℃ UN limit on temperature increase now impossible

A rally protesting against the Trump administration’s cuts to federal scientific funding in New York in March 2025. Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPA

**Attack on federal scientists

• Many fired; others quit under pressure
• The National Science Foundation and Commerce Department scrubbed prohibitions against political interference from policies on scientific integrity
• Attempted to politicize all federal research grants by OMB rule change
• Killed the National Nature Assessment
• Killed the National Climate Assessment
• Staff cuts: Federal science-related agencies lost ~118,000 staff September 2024 to February 2026; Forest Service and National Science Foundation each down 33%; National Park Service down 37%; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration down 42%; science PhDs working for federal government in January 2024 down ~14%
• In health: National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration each with ~22% staff loss; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention down 35%; Senior leadership ranks reduced
• American scientists at early career stages are taking jobs overseas and in Canada. Brain drain diminishes US science and research for decades.
• Reduced number of independent specialists and scientists on Federal Advisory Councils; entire EPA board was fired; Agency head Lee Zeldin replaced academic experts with industry representatives

**Data center proliferation

• Implications for water use, energy consumption, climate change, and land use
• Allowed unpermitted and unregulated power generation for data centers, pollution entering air, water, and soil; noise and light pollution
• Public outcry opposing data centers, sometimes linked to A.I. skepticism, has ballooned, a major issue in midterm elections, one of few upon which voters across the political spectrum—and across geographical areas and demographics—agree
• Administration moved eliminating a requirement that states announce plans and solicit local feedback
• Data centers have often raised electric bills for far-flung ratepayers by 2x or more
• Some governors and state lawmakers are enacting policies to slow or halt construction of data centers, but more than 1500 projects are in development nationally; centers in planning stages number in the thousands

Smoke and flames rise at the site of airstrikes on an oil depot in Tehran on March 7, 2026. Photo- Sasan; Getty Images

**Environmental degradation caused by war

• War with Iran has raised world coal use to new high
• War with Iran has proliferated oil spills and toxic fires
• War with Iran has increased pollution that damages biodiversity in a region with fragile ecosystems
• Environmental damage in Russian war with Ukrain approaches $100 billion
• In war in Sudan chemical weapons and pollution threaten human and ecosystem health

Note: Many of the above issues have been covered in earlier Action Alerts.

PUSHBACK

Numerous court cases have challenged Administration actions; a number have succeeded; others are in process (see litigation reports from leading organizations bringing these lawsuits: Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation); those actions that have been blocked by court action, subject to appeals and/or administrative end runs, include:

• Federal moratorium on new offshore wind projects
• EPA cancellation of $2.8 billion grant for climate justice
• EPA cancellation of $7 billion Solar for All Program
• USDA cancellation of sustainable agriculture grants
• 400,000 square miles of protected Pacific Ocean waters opened to commercial use
• Department of Energy efforts to force old, inefficient coal plants to continue operating

Additional actions opposing environmental degradation:

• Public comment on proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act, Rescinding the Roadless Rule, politicization of OMB peer-review proposal, and other federal actions have been overwhelmingly negative; this does not seem to have deterred Administration plans, but these comments are now in the federal record and may guide future Administrations and sessions of Congress
• With public opinion set against politicizing government grants, this Administration effort has met Congressional opposition, but the final result depends on midterm elections

ACTION

Sophie Stephens/Vermont Public

The most effective ways to alter or reverse these actions are: 

1. Vote

2. Contact your government representatives, federal and state

3. Support non-profit environmental organizations bringing lawsuits (per above)