Environmental Governance
We track and analyze federal regulatory decisions that impact public health and the environment, explaining their implications, and identifying alternatives that would better promote the public interest.
During the Trump presidency, we monitored the administration’s environmental rollbacks. Our Regulatory Rollback Tracker has dozens of posts with descriptions of the rules that were targeted and our EPA Mission Tracker analyzed how the administration worked to dismantle the agency’s capacity to fulfill its public health and environmental mission. We’ve tracked these efforts, and analyzed them in-depth.
President Biden took office in January 2021 with the most ambitious climate agenda ever articulated by an incoming president. He got right to work demonstrating that his “whole of government” approach would be more than just talk. EELP analyzes how the legacy of the Trump administration’s actions will impact Biden’s ambitions and will track how well the new administration meets its goals.
Scroll down to see our Biden Administration and Trump Era work.
See additional EELP work on our Latest News and Publications pages.
The Biden Presidency
Tracking the Biden-Harris Climate & Environmental Agenda
As the administration implements its climate and environmental agenda, we will collect our analysis of these developments on this page.
Biden’s First 100 Days of Climate Action
100 days into the Biden administration, we review the progress made on the climate and environmental goals outlined in his first week in office — undoing Trump rollbacks, implementing environmental justice and decarbonization priorities, and returning to the international stage. Read our Biden’s First 100 Days of Climate Action report and view our companion Biden Climate Orders Progress Tracker spreadsheet.
Mapping Biden’s Climate Agenda: Week One EOs
President Biden wasted no time in outlining a plan for addressing Trump’s legacy of undermining public health and environmental protections and kicking off the “whole of government” effort to achieve the ambitious environmental and climate goals set during his campaign. He signed multiple Executive Orders and presidential memoranda in the first week that initiate activity in numerous federal agencies. Together, these executive actions kick off an abundance of work within federal agencies ranging from reviewing, revising, and rescinding rules to researching and recommending specific steps to achieve the goals laid out in these directives. EELP prepared resources to help you understand these directives and track the agency work that results.
Looking Ahead to Restoring Environmental Regulation: Pre-Inauguration Analysis
Post-election but before President Biden took office, EELP looked ahead at the incoming administration’s agenda to create a useful set of lists organizing potential executive branch actions with the Biden campaign’s stated goals. We also organized some of our analysis work that could help inform those goals on this page.
Trump Era Analysis
Regulatory Tracker
We tracked around 80 environmental and energy regulatory rollbacks during the Trump administration. In each post, we describe the rules being targeted, what’s at stake, and the latest updates. We continued to update these pages through the first few months of the Biden administration to capture their early efforts to undo these rollbacks. Click here for our Regulatory Tracker.
EPA Mission Tracker
We analyzed the Trump EPA’s efforts to undermine the agency’s capacity to act in four key areas: science, public health, accountability, and enforcement and compliance. Click here for the EPA Mission Tracker.