By Helen Gloege ’23
Staff Writer
On day one, newly inaugurated President Joe Biden and his climate team got to work: They rejoined the Paris Agreement, rescinded the federal permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, reestablished the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases and placed a moratorium on all oil and natural gas leasing activities in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Biden has promised a presidency that centers on climate change. Despite his goals, the administration will be working with deep budget cuts, staff losses and the elimination of climate programs and research from the former administration. Drastic climate action will not occur until Biden officials remedy the deficiencies left behind. Gina McCarthy, the administration’s national climate advisor, said, “There is hard work ahead to rebuild agencies and our capacities from the ground up.”
Trump’s actions over his final two months in office weakened many existing environmental regulations. For example, on Jan. 13, with most attention focused on former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment vote, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a new rule limiting its ability to regulate heat-trapping gases. That same day, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it had slashed over 3 million acres of critical habitat for the northern spotted owl, possibly leading to logging in those areas.
Throughout his presidency, Trump made significant changes to the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Within the past month, additional changes took place, making it more difficult to define “critical habitats,” specific geographic areas set aside for a species’ survival. One of the changes he made reduces the amount of land considered “critical habitats,” while another makes it easier to avoid establishing a habitat.
Along with more recent changes, the Trump administration has led to lost years of progress on emission reduction and developing public trust in scientific integrity. The administration also demonstrated pullbacks on climate regulations despite scientific authorities clearly communicating the urgent need to act. In 2017, Trump told the EPA to dismantle the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. The plan aimed to reduce carbon emissions from the power sector to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. This reduction would have avoided 70 million tons of emissions by the end of this year and over 400 million tons by 2030. The Clean Power Plan was replaced with the Affordable Clean Energy rule that the EPA said would result in only 11 million tons less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 2030. This rule was then unanimously struck down in federal court on Jan. 19, 2021.
Due to how long greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere, the Trump administration could influence climate change for years to come. A 2020 estimate from the Rhodium Group, a research institute aiming to provide independent and original research, data and analytics on a range of global subjects, found that the Trump administration’s actions, which weakened greenhouse gas regulations, could add 1.8 gigatons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2035. Additionally, various climate-related organizations have been adversely affected. EPA research labs and science advisory boards are currently smaller, as their workforce has lost over 600 people. The Department of Energy’s Quadrennial Energy Review, a four-part roadmap for U.S. energy policy up to 2040, has been curtailed, along with other research. The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Environment and Energy has also been cut. Additionally, the Trump administration disengaged from the international Arctic Council and blocked climate work at the U.S. Arctic Research Commission.
Among the slew of decreasing regulations, the oil and gas lease spree has peaked during the last few months of the Trump administration, with the Bureau of Land Management approving the sale of 1,400 leases out of 3,000 applications. Oil and gas leases are difficult to undo because they often involve property rights laws. Furthermore, many of the oil and gas leases target sensitive habitats. The Bureau of Land Management headquarters recently relocated to Grand Junction, Colorado, from Washington, D.C., causing many leading officials to leave the agency and decrease its effectiveness.
In early January, the Trump administration announced it had issued drilling leases on over 400,000 acres of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The formal issue of the leases by the Bureau of Land Management came a day before the inauguration of Biden, who had pledged to protect the 19.6 million-acre land. Before leaseholders can begin drilling wells, they need to seek permits from the new administration. The Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska office said it had issued nine of the 11 leases that received bids at auction on Jan. 6 and were working on issuing the remaining two. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority was given seven leases. The other two were issued to Alaska real estate company Knik Arm Services LLC and Regenerate Alaska Inc., a unit of Australia’s 88 Energy Ltd. The Gwich’in Steering Committee that represents tribes reliant on the region’s Porcupine caribou denounced the move.
On day one of his presidency, Biden put a temporary moratorium on the gas and oil leasing activities in the refuge. This ban cited alleged legal deficiencies underlying the program and the inadequacy of required environmental review. Biden’s executive order will be directed to the Department of the Interior to review the program and the law surrounding the situation. It could be difficult for the Biden administration and environmental groups to challenge these leases. Once the lease is sold, its buyer has property rights over it, so there will likely be litigation if the leases themselves were validly issued. If any one of the leases are upheld in court, it will become much more difficult to revoke any of them.
Nevertheless, buried in the $900 billion stimulus package passed last December was some climate legislation. The package included the phasing out of hydrofluorocarbons, a class of super heat-trapping gases, and the extension of carbon capture tech tax credit for the industry. The United States will also officially rejoin the Paris Agreement on Feb. 19. The Biden team is likely to rely on state and local partners to help demonstrate emission cuts. The administration has removed the Keystone XL Pipeline’s permit, meaning the chances of it being built have significantly diminished. The pipeline would have supported new production beyond 2050. The administration is also reestablishing the Obama-era process that developed and maintained the social cost of carbon and methane. The metrics will assign a monetized value to each ton of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere and will be used in cost-benefit analyses for regulation and other actions.
The Biden administration can replace many of the environmental protections Trump dismantled. Policies such as reinstating or tightening Obama-era standards on issues like car and truck emissions can take anywhere from a few months to a year. There are several pathways that the Biden administration may use to undo the regulatory accomplishments of the Trump administration. The fastest route is the Congressional Review Act that allows Congress to nullify a rule within 60 legislative working days of its passage. However, when a law is nullified, it prohibits future regulation that is considered “substantially the same.” This part of the act hasn’t been tested in courts, and it could backfire when developing similar legislation. Another pathway is through the use of courts to block regulations on various grounds. The rule-making process itself is another tool where it could be possible to simultaneously repeal and replace rules. Many of these processes can be full of delays and take years to go fully into effect.
