During his first 100 days, President Trump launched more attacks on the environment than in his entire first term. It feels impossible to keep up with all the blows—and this is by design. We tracked those first 100 days of environmental harms in a timeline. Yet the hits keep coming. So we’ll now be tracking the administration’s most significant actions on air pollution, climate change, and toxic chemicals monthly—and sharing some of them here as they relate to Moms Clean Air Force’s work.
Tell EPA: Hands Off Climate Pollution Limits for Power Plants
Here’s just some of what happened in May:
- No money for disaster protection: Funding was halted for the federal Hazard Mitigation and Grant Program formerly used to protect people and property from disasters.
- Toxic chemicals get a pass: The House and Senate voted to overturn an EPA rule that protected communities from seven highly toxic air pollutants—a major shock. The resolution was signed into law by President Trump in June, making this the first time Congress has weakened protections under the Clean Air Act.
- States sued: The Trump administration sued New York and Vermont over their state climate laws, despite the fact that the President has championed states’ rights in the past.
- Workers at risk: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is expected to lose 900 jobs by the end of June, gutting an agency focused on protecting workers from toxic chemicals and other workplace hazards.
- Forever chemicals forever: EPA eliminated the office charged with setting standards for PFAS, in spite of saying the agency would be working on addressing PFAS pollution.
And here’s just some of what happened in June:
- Two big, ugly clean air rollbacks: EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin launched a pollution spree, announcing proposals to repeal two major 2024 environmental rules that had been enacted to limit toxic pollution from coal and gas power plants.
- Fossil fuel industry gift: EPA, which stands for Environmental Protection Agency, will now protect fossil fuel companies by stopping enforcement of pollution violations against them.
- Federal Emergency Management Agency weakened: Shortly after FEMA’s acting head said he didn’t know the U.S. had a hurricane season (he claimed later he was joking), the head of FEMA’s storm response center resigned, likely related to Trump’s stated intention to phase the agency out.
- Making energy expensive again: As Congress debates a big, brutal spending bill that would dramatically slash important U.S. clean energy and climate programs and harm kids’ health, a new Center for Global Sustainability (CGS) study demonstrates just how expensive the repeal of clean energy policies is, saying they will result in a $1.1 trillion plunge in the U.S. GDP over the next decade. The repeals also threaten clean energy investments and jobs as well as harm human health via increased air pollution.
- Silencing public education on climate: Nearly all staff of Climate.gov, a major government website designed to help the public understand climate change, were fired. There are no plans for the site to publish new content moving forward.
These are likely not the last rollbacks, cuts, or attacks on clean air, clean energy, and toxic chemical protections we’ll see from this administration, so stay tuned as we track what happens in July.
Read what happened in the first 100 days of the administration in our timeline.
Tell EPA: Hands Off Climate Pollution Limits for Power Plants