At a May 14 panel sponsored by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, Harvard climate faculty shared what they have learned from the first four months of the Trump administration, what worries them the most about his attacks on climate research and policy, and what they are watching in the months ahead.
EELP Founding Director and Harvard Law School Professor Jody Freeman participated in the discussion, her opening remarks are below. Read the full article at the Salata Institute.
For me, there are five pillars in how we approach climate policy in the United States. Donald Trump is attacking all five.
1. International engagement
The U.S. plays a crucial role in global climate negotiations. Our presence — or absence — on the international stage influences cooperation on emissions reductions, technology transfers, and adaptation financing. Abrupt shifts in policy weaken trust and disrupt progress. The president has announced that the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
2. Domestic regulation
The president is challenging federal and state environmental and clean energy rules in a variety of ways, including with executive orders. In April, Trump directed the Attorney General to investigate state-level clean energy policies, with the goal of undermining any perceived threat to the administration’s commitment to fossil-fuel dominance.
At the same time, the administration instructed agencies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to deploy emergency powers to prop up coal-fired power. The president also signed orders directing agencies to roll back environmental rules without the usual public notice or comment process. That threatens the bedrock principle of transparent, lawful government.
Another example of the administration’s attack on state-level regulation is the battle over California’s Clean Air Act waivers. That special authority granted to the state by Congress allows California to apply to EPA for a “waiver” of federal preemption to set its own vehicle emissions standards, which other states may follow. California’s role is important nationwide because the state has been a bulwark against federal backsliding, by continuing to spur progress toward cleaner technologies in the transportation sector even when federal rules are weakened. Now, Congress appears poised to nullify the most recent waivers, using a law that allows it to void federal rules using a fast-track, filibuster-proof process. Although these individualized waiver grants have never been treated as rules before, Congress is considering classifying them as rules now, over the objection of both the General Accountability Office and the Senate Parliamentarian. The House has already voted to disapprove them; the Senate’s decision to do so would set a far-reaching precedent.
3. Industrial policy
When Congress invests in clean energy infrastructure, transportation, and manufacturing, as it did by passing the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act during the Biden administration, it’s pursuing an industrial policy approach to climate change. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, for instance, was designed to inject billions into decarbonization and efficiency upgrades, such as clean school buses and more efficient buildings. Yet, early on, the Trump administration froze much of this funding, even though it was congressionally appropriated and fully obligated to grantees. Judges have intervened to unfreeze some grants, but the broader landscape remains mixed as challenges move through the courts. The current uncertainty and instability is bound to have a chilling effect on grantees and their private-sector partners, and will undermine confidence in government-backed climate efforts.
4. Climate science and research
The administration has also taken aim at the scientific research behind climate policy. One major example is the pending reconsideration of the Endangerment Finding – the scientific and legal basis for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. If the administration were to rescind the endangerment finding, there would no longer be a legal foundation to set federal greenhouse gas standards. This would remove the government’s most important tool for limiting climate pollution.
5. The role of the private sector
Finally, the private sector is essential to driving clean energy innovation and addressing climate risk. And it too depends on regulatory consistency and predictability from government. Abrupt funding freezes, shifting rules, and chaotic policy gyrations have sown uncertainty and undermined confidence, which inhibits investment and innovation across energy, transportation, and tech. The administration has also threatened private sector climate coalitions with anti-trust investigations, chilling private sector coordination to promote net-zero commitments.
What’s reversible?
Many people ask me whether these rollbacks and reinterpretations are permanent. Executive orders are not law. The normal rule is: What a president can do with the stroke of the pen, the next president can undo with the stroke of the pen. But that’s not exactly right in this instance because of the extent to which this administration is changing the status quo with utter disregard for the normal legal constraints. The administration is swinging for the fences and clearly daring the courts to stop them. And by the time the law catches up with them, conditions on the grounds will have significantly shifted. Re-building government capacity is harder than tearing it down. Attracting new private investment is harder than scaring it off. So reversing some things will be much harder.
More broadly, the administration is doing lasting harm to the government’s institutional capacity and to democratic accountability. When you don’t have access to science and information; when long-serving independent experts are cut out of government policymaking and replaced by loyalists; when expertise is downgraded, and political support or affiliation is upgraded within the agencies; when you can’t access the data necessary to assess whether public health outcomes are worse or better – when all these things happen, it becomes harder to hold the government to account.