The environmental group, which fought the first wounded court battle with the Trump administration, is training themselves for another round, amid a barrage of executive orders, firing and cutting funds.
In interviews with more than half a dozen of the most prominent groups, management said some legal challenges could take time to develop, as many of Trump's orders have yet to be translated into specific types of action. He said it was sexual. Like a change in a particular rule, it can be fought directly in court.
But “Trump is clearly coming out for all climate and clean energy standards and incentives,” said David Doniger, senior strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The groups said they already see potential weaknesses in the Trump administration's broad approach to eliminating employment in the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal offices. The EPA demoted career staff and placed 168 employees in the Environmental Justice office on vacation. The Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division has also seen major reforms.
The problem is that staff cutting staff today could make it difficult for the administration to later rewrite regulations and undermine them. That's because rulemaking is a technical process that can benefit from the expertise of people who have been left behind.
“It's difficult to dismantle agents and get a lot done at the same time,” said Abigail Dillen, president of EarthJustice, a non-profit public interest environmental law organization. Changes to rules quickly or inadvertently make them “vulnerable to legal challenges,” she said.
That's what happened in the first Trump administration, which had a disastrous victory in court. Bethany Davis Noll, executive director of the State Center for Energy and Environmental Impact at the New York University School of Law, is the author of a 2021 study on the first Trump administration's records before court. She found that the previous administration had won around 70% of legal challenges to agency behavior, but that rating fell to 23% during the Trump era.
Some of these losses came from failure to comply with the basic measures set out in the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, Davisnoll said: Includes from industry and environmental groups. Biden-era officials put together detailed records to support their rules, she said, and they are difficult to challenge court or the other way around, even in offices with completely staff. It could prove something, she said.
“If there's no one in the agency, you can't complete a bunch of rollbacks,” Davisnoll said.
In a written response, an EPA spokesman said, “We will follow the law and science to fulfill our mission to protect human health and the environment.”
New EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has vowed to approach policy decisions carefully as government agencies try to improve their winning rates in court. The first Trump administration came across lawsuits from hundreds of environmentalists. This time, more is possible.
The early fights are likely to focus on issues like automatic emission standards, and moves that the Biden administration made later in its term, banning most new offshore oil and gas drilling.
Environmental groups recently moved to briefs that were intervened or submitted in several cases to protect existing regulations regarding air pollution. They said they could also be involved in existing lawsuits over the early moves of the Trump administration.
In particular, they cited the Trump administration's attack on funding through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021. The new administration has suspended this type of spending.
“Fundraising moratoriums are a climate battle,” said Joanne Spalding, director of the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program. These cases are filed not by environmental groups but by state and nonprofit organizations that are more directly affected by the withdrawal of federal funds.
She also pointed to the ongoing challenges to Biden-era regulations that are still being litigated. The new administration has asked the court to hold it back to reassessing whether or not they will continue to defend these cases.
In 2017, Jeremy Simmons, senior adviser to the Environmental Protection Network, a group of former EPA employees, said that his “where to burn” approach was “baked out” and “carefully made” approach to obedience. He pointed out a new tension between what he said. Polluters Lobby Agenda. ”
“If you want to do something with the EPA, you need the expertise provided by your career staff,” Simmons said.
One of the first moves by the Environmental Defense Fund was to submit a Freedom of Information Act request for copies of agency communications related to changes in energy and environmental policy. “We will continue to work in both courts and public opinion courts,” said Vicki Patton, the group's advisor.
