Biden puts Trump’s climate and environmental reversals in his sights

Biden puts Trump’s climate and environmental reversals in his sights

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Biden’s advisers have compiled a list of more than 100 rules and policies developed by the Trump administration that he sees as targets for review, CNN found. Each of the policies is related to environmental conservation and climate change and is linked to an executive order that Biden intends to sign on public health and the environment.

Many items on the list are the main targets of criticism from environmental groups that have accused the Trump administration of ignoring the risks of climate change and being overly sympathetic to the wishes of the industry.

Included in the list are several changes in housewares that Trump praised at his rallies.

Energy efficiency limits, he said, complicated washing his “beautiful hair properly” under weak showers, generated complaints and rendered dishwashers ineffective. His energy secretary overturned a tightening of the lamp rules after the president told the crowd that new lamp technology is the reason “I always look orange”.

Some of the policies may be easier to discontinue than others, prevent them from taking effect or cancel.

A May 2020 policy on mineral property in part of North Dakota, for example, was a legal memorandum and could be reversed with an updated legal memorandum by Biden nominees. The government also overturned, through a legal memorandum, a 25-year-old policy that protected sand along the protected coast from being sold.

Most of the Biden team’s nine-page list can be tricky to terminate or reverse because the Trump administration wrote them in formal regulations.

There are other paths that the Biden government could take.

With a Democratic majority – however small – in both houses of Congress, the government can also count on the help of the Capitol. The Congressional Review Law would allow lawmakers and Biden to repeal the agency’s rules in recent months. Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress used the rule to reverse the Obama administration’s actions shortly after his inauguration.

It could also choose to side with groups that challenge virtually all major Trump administration environmental and energy decisions in court.

You won’t have to go very far either. Perhaps the most recent challenge, this time of reversing protection against birds, was presented by a coalition of environmental groups on Tuesday – the day before Biden took office.

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