|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
For Earthworks and the broader climate movement, a Trump presidency and an anti-environmental Congress signal the start of another chapter of attacks on policies that protect our air, water, and communities. While we face daunting challenges ahead, we know that the climate crisis is real, and the evidence is clear: we cannot afford to let our progress slip backward.
The Trump administration’s agenda, shaped by the “Project 2025” manifesto, will include giveaways to the fossil fuel and mining industries, regulatory rollbacks, fast-tracking polluting projects, and attempts to dismantle the progress we’ve made in moving towards a more just, equitable, and livable future.
Our Mission in the Face of These Challenges
At Earthworks, we are committed to fighting back against the forces working to harm our planet and people. We’ve seen this playbook before, and we know how to respond.
- Defending our Bedrock Environmental Laws, Climate-Focused Agencies, and Environmental Oversight
The Trump administration has a history of dismantling vital protections for public health and the environment, and a second term will likely bring intensified threats to the safeguards shielding communities from oil, gas, and mining pollution. Foundational laws like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—cornerstones of environmental and public health protections—are at risk of being severely weakened. NEPA rollbacks, in particular, could fast-track harmful projects like mines and oil and gas export terminals by sidelining public input and environmental review, leaving frontline communities without a voice and vulnerable to long-term consequences.
During his first term, Trump rolled back over 125 critical environmental protections, many of which were challenged in court. However, a second term could allow for more enduring damage, eroding laws designed to protect air, water, and the climate while disproportionately harming communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel and mining operations. Plans to accelerate permitting for extractive projects would prioritize industry expansion over the health and safety of local populations, leading to increased air pollution, water contamination, and climate impacts.
Efforts to dismantle agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of the Interior are expected to undermine their ability to regulate polluting industries effectively. With reduced resources, these agencies would struggle to hold the fossil fuel and mining industries accountable, leaving communities exposed to unchecked environmental and public health harms. This systematic weakening of protections poses a dire threat to vulnerable populations and the climate.
Earthworks will use every tool in our toolbox to defend the laws that protect communities, air, and water from the worst impacts of extraction. We will advocate for the EPA and other vital agencies to continue to do the important work they do to reign in pollution.
- Expanding Dirty Fossil Fuels While Dismantling Environmental Justice Initiatives
The Trump administration has made it clear that it seeks to expand oil and gas production and infrastructure rapidly, without concern for the harmful impacts of these industries. This will lead to more oil and gas export construction, expansion of petrochemical facilities, as well as drilling and fracking. A lack of effective oversight and regulatory protections will exacerbate the risks to vulnerable populations across the country and around the world.
While ramping up polluting industries, President Trump is also expected to dismantle initiatives like Justice40, which aims to ensure that federal investments flow to communities most impacted by pollution and environmental degradation. These communities, often communities of color or low-income areas, are disproportionately affected by both fossil fuel activities.
Earthworks is committed to advocating for environmental justice by supporting affected communities’ efforts to gain a seat at the table in decision-making processes for fossil fuel projects. We will continue pushing for policies that prioritize community health, environmental protection, and long-term sustainability, even as the Trump administration prioritizes the profits of Big Oil polluters over the people forced to live with pollution in their backyards.
- Mining and the Threats to Mining-Impacted Communities
Mining-impacted communities bear a significant burden of pollution and environmental degradation. Under a Trump administration, these risks will intensify as protections against the harms of mining are weakened or dismantled.
Trump’s “Project 2025” aims to fast-track mining operations, deregulate industry practices, and open more public lands to extraction. This includes easing permitting processes and curtailing the ability of environmental organizations and communities to challenge harmful projects in court. Such policies are especially alarming amid the global push for minerals for the energy transition, like lithium and cobalt.
Indigenous and frontline communities have long fought to protect their land and water from the harmful impacts of mining. Under a Trump administration, these communities will face even greater challenges as short-term economic gains are prioritized over their rights and well-being. Earthworks will continue to stand with these communities, working to safeguard lands, waters and sacred sites, advocate for less harmful mining, and oppose any efforts to erode vital rights and protections.
- Methane Pollution: A Critical Issue for the Climate
One of the most immediate and dangerous threats posed by the Trump administration is the rollback of a suite of methane pollution standards. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas—at least 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere. This makes reducing methane pollution one of the most impactful steps we can take to slow the climate crisis and stay below 1.5°C of global warming.
For the past decade, Earthworks has been at the forefront of advocating for stronger standards, and a swift transition away from polluting fossil fuels. The Biden administration took historic steps to regulate methane from new and existing oil and gas infrastructure, and the 117th Congress went further to require the largest polluters to pay up when they spew harmful methane into the air. The Trump administration’s agenda threatens to undo that progress by weakening or repealing these essential protections. Without these safeguards, methane pollution will continue to escape unchecked, undermining efforts to mitigate climate change and impacting communities living near oil and gas operations.
Earthworks will continue to fight for strong, enforceable methane standards and work with states and localities to ensure protections stay in place, even as the federal government rolls back its efforts. Communities who are already facing the worst consequences of extraction cannot afford to wait any longer for action. Earthworks is committed to ensuring that the fight against methane pollution continues, no matter who occupies the White House.
- Pulling Back from Global Climate Leadership and Threats to the Clean Energy Transition
Under a second Trump administration, the U.S. is likely to withdraw from the global climate conversation, including exiting the Paris Agreement. This diminishes the U.S.’s ability to push for better practices and accountability within global supply chains, particularly in the fossil fuel and mining sectors, exacerbating environmental and social injustices. It also limits the U.S.’s role in advocating for frontline communities who face exploitation from extractive industries.
Trump’s shift away from science-based climate policies towards deregulation and fossil fuel expansion will stall clean energy investments and undermine air quality protections, which are essential for protecting the health of frontline communities and staving off the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Earthworks will continue to build power towards a just transition away from unchecked extraction, and toward a sustainable, renewable energy economy.
Standing Together to Fight Back
The fight for environmental and climate justice is more critical than ever, and it will take all of us working together to resist attacks on protections for our health, air, water, and land. Together with a broad coalition of frontline communities and partner organizations, Earthworks won’t back down. We will resist attacks on environmental protections, hold polluters accountable, and fight for stronger safeguards for health and safety wherever we can, including international policy change, efforts to make climate progress in our key states, and power building on the ground in local communities.
Our work over the next four years extends beyond immediate battles—it’s about building the power we need to secure lasting change. The next elections are critical to shaping a future where people and the planet come before profit. By organizing, mobilizing, and ensuring that frontline voices are heard, we can strengthen the movement and push for leaders who prioritize environmental and climate justice.
