BACKGROUND:
Overview
In eleven months since he was inaugurated, Donald Trump and his Administration have beat a path to undo over 50 years of environmental law originally established not only to protect nature, but to protect the citizens of the United States and the world. Until now, American presidents, working with Congress, have strived to build a strong national system to protect habitats, to conserve species, to restrict soil, air, and water pollution, to regulate pesticides, and to reduce greenhouse gases in order to slow climate change. Every one of these safeguards to protect our environment and to better our lives is now under serious threat.
Early Actions of this Administration
Among the many early actions of this Administration were, first, halting the National Nature Assessment by the US Global Change Research Program, a major effort to assess where we are in terms of protecting nature. Fortunately, this effort is now being pushed forward by independent researchers. Second, Trump’s EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, immediately announced his intention to rescind dozens of regulations protecting public health and the environment and claimed that EPA’s mission was now to "lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business." Third, the Trump Administration has been trying to render the Endangered Species Act impotent by redefining the meaning of "harm” done to a species such that destroying the habitat of that species would not constitute harm. And, finally, among these early actions, the "Big, Beautiful Bill" eliminated many protections set by the previous administration through the Inflation Reduction Act. These destructive activities have not stopped. The Administration has fired many scientists working in government research; others are silenced and their funding restricted. This is a partial list of early actions. Many others could be cited, such as canceling the National Climate Assessment or the removal of scientific information from government websites.
More Recent Actions
We have witnessed during the past month another wave of rollbacks of federal environmental protections. Through coordinated actions by the Department of the Interior and its Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency, sweeping changes are proposed to the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and restrictions on oil and gas drilling in US coastal waters (see NYTimes - In One Week, Trump Moves to Reshape U.S. Environmental Policy and The Guardian - Trump officials reveal plan to roll back regulations in Endangered Species Act). These tectonic changes, driven by what are claimed as economic factors rather than by the best available science, will cause irreparable harm to water quality, to the protection of both endangered and threatened species, and to our marine ecosystems. In the long run these changes will damage economic health. Even as the Administration announced these changes, it was boycotting the United Nations Climate COP30 held in Belem, Brazil. While such changes could take many months, all our efforts should be concentrated to halt any forward movement of them now.
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Endangered Species Act
The earlier Trump proposal to remove protection of critical habitat regulated under the Endangered Species Act, addressed in our April Action Alert, has not been finalized. But in November the agencies proposed four new revisions under this law. These proposals claim disingenuously to “clarify” the Endangered Species Act. Instead, they would essentially disable the statute from fulfilling the intentions of Congress, intentions well served by lawful enforcement of this act for over 50 years. The new proposals will 1) enhance the likelihood that threatened species will become extinct before they even attain “endangered” status; 2) fail to protect endangered species from fatal consequences of past habitat destruction; 3) permit fast-track approvals of destructive projects without adequate consideration of consequences for endangered and threatened species; and 4) erode the law’s scientific foundations by prioritizing commercial gain over scientific fact in decisions about species' survival. For a brief on the impact of these proposals on some specific species, see Analysis: Seven Animals Jeopardized by Trump Plan to Ax Endangered Species Act.
Clean Water Act
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The Clean Water Act has sought to restore and protect the health of our nation's rivers, lakes and wetlands for over 50 years. Agency regulations as well as court decisions since the birth of the Act have tended to follow the indisputable science that wetlands - both with surface connections to other waterways and those with subterranean connections - can profoundly impact those waterways when filled and/or polluted. The Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA sharply narrowed the scope of “waters of the United States” subject to federal protection, requiring rivers to be navigable in the 19th Century sense and requiring tributary streams to have relatively permanent flows. Now EPA’s proposed definition of “waters of the United States” would, among other things, require wetlands adjacent to rivers to have standing surface water throughout the wet season, excluding from federal protection millions of acres of wetlands throughout the US that have saturated soils and groundwater connections with adjacent streams. It would also exclude interstate waters (rivers and lakes that straddle state lines) from protection unless they otherwise meet the definition of navigable waters. The new definitions, combined with the Supreme Court’s restrictive ruling in Sackett, would leave protection of a majority of the nations’ rivers and wetlands solely to the states, many of which do not protect such waters under state law. Currently, 24 out of 50 states rely on federal protections for clean water enforcement of wetlands and streams. If this proposed rule becomes finalized, close to 80% of wetlands and over 5 million miles of streams would lose their protected status. (see EPA Rule Further Slashes Clean Water Act Protections for Streams, Wetlands; also Trump Proposal Will Dismantle Wetlands Protections, Increase Flood Risk).
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What We Must Do Now:
Urge classmates and colleagues to oppose the Trump Administration’s dismantling of environmental protection by:
1) Submitting comments to the Federal Register in opposition to the November 2025 proposed amendments to the Endangered Species Act by the 22 December 2025 deadline.
2) Submitting comments to the Federal Register in opposition to the November 2025 proposed amendments to the Clean Water Act by the 5 January 2026 deadline.
For background and guidance on submitting your comment see:
3) Encouraging others to submit comments and speak out on these latest attacks on the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and lifting restrictions on oil and gas drilling in US coastal waters; and
4) Contacting your members of Congress (Senators and Representatives) to express opposition to these recent proposed changes and Executive Orders.
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