This week, the Trump administration stepped up efforts to erode climate progress nationwide, aimed at undermining the state’s ability to set its own environmental policies, including key elements in California’s fight against climate change.
On an order dated April 8th, the president oversaw Atty. General Pam Bondi will identify and “stop” state laws that address climate change and other environmental initiatives.
“Many states are instituting, or in the process of, ideologically motivated processes, or in the process of enacting “climate change” or energy policies that threaten America’s energy control and our economic security,” the president wrote in an executive order.
“These state laws and policies are essentially inconsistent with my administration’s purpose to unleash American energy,” he writes. “They shouldn’t stand.”
The federal government’s claims of power over state rights appear to violate some of Trump’s other positions. He campaigned on state rights to issues such as abortion, for example. The order specifically calls for several states, including New York and Vermont. He accused fossil fuel companies of “forced” past contributions to greenhouse gas emissions that warm the planet.
The order is also aiming for California’s cap-and-trade program. This is the first initiative to limit businesses’ greenhouse gas emissions and allow other companies to sell “credits” of their unused emissions.
“For example, California punishes the use of carbon by adopting an impossible cap on the amount of carbon operations, everything except for forcing businesses to “trade” carbon credits to meet California’s radical requirements,” the president writes.
The executive order shows the continuation of Trump’s recent anti-environmental efforts. This includes cuts to grant funding, widespread office closures and layoffs in the climate research community, relaxation of regulations and new initiatives to expand oil and coal production.
It also shows the escalation of the conflict between Trump and California. In recent months, the president has specifically aimed at a Democrat base, including threatening to withhold disaster aid for state wildfire response and recovery to issues such as forest management and water policy.
“There’s a bit of beef right now between Trump and the nation,” said Maggie Coulter, senior lawyer at the Climate Law Institute at the nonprofit Center for Biodiversity. “I think the reason why I want to call California is part of the reason why Cap and Trade were mentioned.”
California programs that may be found in federal crosshairs are not cap-and-trade. The order directs Bondi to locate and prioritize state laws that address climate change, environmental justice, greenhouse gas emissions and carbon taxes. This is “like a laundry list for everything the oil and gas industry doesn’t like,” Coulter said.
As such, the executive order could also impact California’s ability to set strict tailpipe emissions standards, including a state law banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles in 2035, and efforts to move to electric vehicles.
The Trump administration has already made an effort to block the law, and is currently being deployed in court.
Additionally, the executive order could impact California polluters on the 2025 Climate Superfund Act. The things Trump yelled at his orders were similar to New York and Vermont laws, Coulter said.
Blocking these laws is like creating immunity for the fossil fuel industry from these damages. Unlike protections that protect firearm manufacturers from certain civil lawsuits, Communications Director pays for polluters, a campaign for climate accountability, according to Cassidy Dipaola.
“President Trump’s executive orders are arming the Department of Justice against states like California who want to force polluters to pay for climate damage,” DiPaola wrote in a statement. “This is a despair over a complete display of the fossil fuel industry. They are afraid to face evidence of a courtroom deception, so they have convinced the president to launch a federal attack on state sovereignty.”
In fact, the oil and gas industry celebrated the order – issued the same week that the president ordered an immediate expansion of the country’s coal production.
“We welcome President Trump’s actions to preserve states like New York and California in pursuing unconstitutional efforts to illegally punish US oil and natural gas producers for their reliance on American consumers every day,” read a statement from Ryan Myers, senior vice president of the American Petroleum Institute.
The Trump administration has said numerous environmental rollbacks aim to ease regulatory costs, reduce taxes and expand the creation of a “affordable and reliable domestic energy supply.”
“Simply put, Americans are better when the US controls energy,” Trump’s executive order says.
The order will compile Bondi’s list of applicable state climate laws for 60 days, submit a report to the President on the actions taken, and provide recommendations for additional legislative measures necessary to halt the enforcement of those state laws.
Coulter of the Climate Law Institute said preventing the state from actually enforcing the law would be an illegal and unconstitutional review.
“That’s not really something Trump or the Attorney General can do,” Coulter said. “If you want to stop enforcement of state law, you have to go to court, and that’s the jurisdiction of the court.”
He said that litigation and legal challenges are almost certain if the administration actually tried to stop the state from enforcing its own laws.
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