100 Days: Every Harm Trump Has Done To Public Lands, The Environment, And Wildlife

A comprehensive list of every action the administration has taken to harm our planet, the places we go outdoors, and the plants and animals that live on it

How about this for an undertaking? On this 100th day of the Trump administration, I’m going to attempt to list every action they’ve taken to harm our planet, our ability to live and recreate on it, and the biodiversity we rely on. I’ll include a brief explanation around each, and link out to more information. It’s my hope that this can serve as both a record, and a wake up call. If we don’t stop this—and stop it soon—we are screwed.

While compiling this list, a couple of takeaways stood out to me:

• Much of this is underreported

• It’s really hard to capture the import of some of these decisions or orders in a simple list. Stuff like eliminating permitting for wind projects will also combine with the moronic trade war to utterly decimate entire sectors of industry, ceding that development and knowledge to foreign rivals, while compounding the impacts of climate change.

• Many of the impacts created in just this 100 day period will take years to fully understand, and could impair the American economy for decades.

• This stuff is going to kill people. Between all the cancer that will be caused combined with the accelerated impacts of the climate disaster, you’d be hard pressed to describe a better plan for putting American lives at risk. But the agencies, staff and budgets that tabulate causation and forecast risk are also being cut, so it’ll be a long time before we can even fully appreciate the risk being created, or the number of American deaths the Trump administration will ultimately cause.

I’ve attempted to list these actions in broad categories. Obviously many of these things fit into more than one category, or will have impacts across all sectors of public life and the economy.

Climate

• Withdrew from Paris Climate Agreement (link)

  • Condemns young people and future generations to life on a planet that will be increasingly unable to support human life

  • Accelerates extreme weather and other current impacts of climate change

  • Brings forward “tipping points,” beyond which remediation will not be possible

• Reversed commitment to fight climate change and build environmental justice for impacted communities (link)

  • See above

  • Worsens impacts for poor and minority communities

• Eliminated tailpipe emissions standards and EV mandate (link)

  • Makes U.S. auto industry less competitive globally

  • Forces consumers to spend more on gas

  • Billions of extra tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year

• Expedited LNG export terminal approval (link)

  • Even more emissions

  • Increases LNG costs for consumers

• Froze Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding (link)

  • Wastes already spent taxpayer dollars

  • Re-entrenches oil and gas for at least a generation

  • Allows rest of world to race ahead of U.S. on new technology and IP

• Replaced offshore wind with oil extraction (link)

  • And froze all new wind leases

  • Re-permits off-shore oil exploration

  • Marky Mark made a good cautionary tale movie about the risks

• Terminated American Climate Corps (link)

  • Lost thousands of good paying jobs in green energy transition

  • Further re-engtrenches oil and gas

• Re-Opened ANWR and other sensitive areas in Alaska to drilling (link)

  • They’ll still have to hold lease sales, which probably won’t succeed

  • Any development will condemn polar bears to extinction, mill migratory birds

• Eliminated words “climate change” from federal websites (link)

• Reduced appliance energy standards (link)

  • Costs consumers money

  • Makes U.S. industry less competitive globally

• Halted permitting of renewable energy projects on private land (link)

  • Stops all renewable energy development

  • Cedes IP and tech leadership to foreign rivals

  • Reduces grid resilience to extreme weather

• Eliminated federal funding for EV chargers (link)

  • Reduces viability of EV ownership

  • Reduces demand for EVs

  • Eliminates global competitiveness of U.S. auto industry

  • Re-entrenches oil and gas

• Struck disclosure of climate impacts from SEC filings (link)

  • Minimizes corporate accountability

  • Makes private investments less certain

• Ordered FEMA to scrub all mentions of “climate change” (link)

  • Eliminates programs preparing communities for more extreme weather, rising sea levels

• Eliminating Green House Gas Reduction Fund (link)

  • $27 billion federal fund for reducing emissions of carbon and other emissions

  • Increases energy prices for consumers

  • Reduces grid, infrastructure resilience

  • Re-entrenches oil and gas

• NOAA Being Gutted (link)

  • No more research into extreme weather

  • Reduced weather forecast capability nationwide

• Eliminated climate justice grants (link)

  • Cuts $1.7 billion in funding for community resilience programs

• Eliminated environmental justice offices at EPA (link)

  • Reduces community resilience

• Blocked state climate regulation (link)

  • Ordered attorney general to sue any state attempting to regulation climate-causing emissions

• Sunsets all existing energy regulation next year (link)

  • Unless reauthorized, any existing rule governing emissions will end next September

• Gutting FEMA (link)

  • No approved disasters in 100 days

  • Public vows to eliminate or defund agency

  • Preparedness projects also entire lost

Pollution

• “Froze,” all in-progress regulations for clean air, clean water, and other polluting activities (link)

  • Includes PFAS in wastewater

• Declared “Energy Emergency,” to reduce environmental and endangered species act reviews while permitting extraction projects (link)

  • Causes regulatory and legal uncertainty

  • Limits adequate assessment of impacts

• Minimized National Environmental Police Act protections (link)

  • Removes consideration of public comment and environmental impact assessments from permitting process

  • Creates legal and regulatory uncertainty

  • Leaves input from diverse local stakeholders on table

• Fired air pollution scientists at EPA (link)

  • EPA no longer studies sources of pollution

• Ordered that any new rule must include elimination of 10 existing rules (link)

  • Significant chilling effect on needed regulatory progress

• Started process to eliminate 65 percent of EPA staff (link)

  • Returns agency to 1970 staffing levels

  • Eliminates science and regulation

  • Halts environmental protections

• Removed independence of regulatory agencies (link)

  • All decision making now concentrated in White House

  • Removes all expertise

• Eliminated regulation of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride under Clean Air Act (link)

  • Make Americans die from cancer, even more

• Revoked all federal guidance on NEPA compliance (link)

  • Eliminates all work White House Council on Environmental Quality has achieved since 1977

• Redefined WOTUS (link)

  • Eliminates wetlands protections

  • Imperils commercial fishing industry

  • Reduces flooding prevention

  • Kills birds

• Gutted Clean Air Act protections (link)

  • Removed definition of endangerment, the basis for the entire clean air act

• Halted enforcement of air pollution regulations (link)

  • No one’s policing industrial pollution any more

• Removed funding for renewables from Defense Production Act (link)

  • Reduces federal incentives for renewable energy projects

• Fired EPA’s Toxicologists (link)

  • No more studying sources of harm to humans

• Deregulated mercury and arsenic pollution (link)

  • Mercury impedes brain development in human fetuses

  • Arsenic kills you

• Funded coal production, use (link)

  • Orders coal-fired power plants set for retirement to come back online

  • Expands coal production

Wildlife

• Gutting ESA protections (link)

  • Eliminates habitat protections for threatened and endangered species

  • Habitat loss is the number one cause of extinction

• Dismantling Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (link)

  • Eliminates human and legal resources that provide the foundation of scientific management

• Established “Extinction Committee” to expedite permitting that threatens species (link)

  • Speeds permitting process for projects that will eliminate entire species

• Violated Migratory Bird Treaty Act (link)

  • Allows industry to kill birds without penalty

  • Invalidates bedrock bird conservation treaty with Mexico, Canada

• Deregulated ocean fishing (link)

  • Opens marine national monuments to industrial fishing

  • Threatens declining fish populations

Public Lands

• Interior Secretary ordered extraction to be prioritized over all else (link)

  • Violates principles of multiple use and sustained yield

  • Illegally circumvents permitting processes and federal law

• Eliminated co-governing process with tribes (link)

  • Violates tribal sovereignty

  • Removes Indigenous input on decision making

  • Removes cohesive policies where reservations border parks and other public lands

• Reduced NPS staff by 17.5 percent (link)

  • More RIFs planned

  • Eliminates institutional knowledge

  • Risks visitor lives

  • Imperils ecosystems, infrastructure

• Fired fire fighting staff, scientists, managers at Forest Service (link)

• Proposed sale of public lands to real estate developers (link)

• Turned management of DOI over to DOGE (link)

• Opened 59 percent of USFS to expedited logging permits (link)

  • Increases risk of wildfire

• Stripped protections from hundred of millions of acres in Alaska (link)

  • Regulations ensuring multiple use and clean environment on Alaska public lands targeted for elimination

• Repealed “Public Lands Rule” (link)

  • Shifts balance for management away from wildlife, environment

• Expedited mining approvals (link)

  • Declares “emergency” to circumvent regulation, permit mining projects

• Threatening National Monuments (link)

  • DOI planning to reduce area of at least six national monuments in near future in order to permit extraction

• Revoked forest protections (link)

  • Eliminated Biden era order to fight deforestation, reduce wildfire risk

• Eliminating Americorps funding (link)

  • $1 billion in annual grant money for conservation projects and local communities just disappeared

  • Existential threat to conservation non-profits

  • 32,000 total jobs lost

  • 1,000 total programs

If you think I forgot anything, please list it in comments with a relevant link! I’ll endeavor to update this list according in coming days.

Top photo: NOAA

Wes Siler is your guide to leading a more exciting life outdoors. Upgrading to a paid subscription supports independent journalism and gives you personal access to his expertise and network, which he’ll use to help you plan trips, purchase gear, and solve problems. You can read more about what he’s doing on Substack through this link.