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One probable path forward at least for some cases: the Trump Administration will freeze certain rules and then ask courts to halt litigation while they commence a lengthy notice-and-comment rulemaking process, Institute for Policy Integrity senior attorney Dena Adler said in an email. But the timing of Biden’s briefs could factor into whether certain cases continue on schedule: courts don’t guarantee abeyance requests. The power plants rule, according to Adler, is one that could raise questions for courts considering a potential freeze request. Not only is it fully briefed, but arguments are set well before inauguration on Dec. 6.

The Trump administration’s record in lower federal courts was even worse: NYU law school’s Institute for Policy Integrity found it won just 22 percent of cases involving challenges to regulatory action. It’s possible the Supreme Court’s decision eliminating the Chevron doctrine and giving judges more power to second-guess federal agencies could be used against Trump efforts to dismantle existing regulations or impose new ones.

Deregulation is the top priority for Republican voters on Wall Street, although Trump’s record in the field is mixed. He left office in 2021 claiming in his first term to have “slashed more job-killing regulations than any administration has ever done before”. However, the Institute for Policy Integrity, a non-partisan think tank at the New York University School of Law, estimated that just 22 per cent of the first Trump administration’s regulatory or deregulatory actions survived legal challenges unscathed.

During Trump’s first term, more than 246 agency regulations, guidance documents and memoranda were challenged in federal courts. The administration won 54 of the cases, a 22% success rate, according to data from the Institute for Policy Integrity at the NYU School of Law.

Trump's first-term policies also encountered a lot of judicial pushback. When it analyzed the outcomes of federal cases involving Trump agency actions from 2017 through the end of his administration, the New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity found that the government was unsuccessful 78 percent of the time.

A new administration must make a robust case for why it’s pulling back, issue a proposal, take public comment and respond to those comments. For complex rulemakings, the process typically takes two or three years. And opponents can sue. Almost 80 percent of the first Trump administration's regulatory actions were defeated in court, the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law estimated.

Trump’s EPA under his first Administrator Scott Pruitt tried to curtail that process. The agency suffered a series of legal defeats that delayed repeals of key Obama-era rules and meant their replacements weren’t final until the end of Trump’s first term. The Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law estimated that almost 80 percent of Trump administration actions were defeated in court.

Governor Hochul is co-chair of the U.S. Climate Alliance – a bipartisan coalition of governors committed to fighting climate change. Among the commitments of the Alliance is the promise to build resilience to withstand the impacts of climate change. The Climate Superfund bill would further that goal. Unless the governor approves the legislation, the entire costs of climate change – which already total billions of dollars annually – will be borne solely by New York taxpayers. The bill shifts some of those costs to the companies most responsible for our worsening climate without those costs being passed on to the public. An independent economic paper published by the respected Institute for Policy Integrity at the NYU School of Law supports that view. 

Trump’s first administration lost in court. A lot. “They did not do well in court largely because of what they did poorly during the regulatory process,” Don Goodson, the deputy director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, told Landmark.”They had a lot of procedural problems when issuing their rules, and they also had poor analyses supporting their rules.” He continued: “Basically, they were just not doing a great job issuing rules, which contributed to a historically low win rate for the administration in court.”

Governor Hochul is co-chair of the U.S. Climate Alliance – a bipartisan coalition of governors committed to fighting climate change. Among the commitments of the Alliance is the promise to build resilience to withstand the impacts of climate change. The Climate Superfund bill would further that goal. Unless the governor approves the legislation, the entire costs of climate change – which already total billions of dollars annually – will be borne solely by New York taxpayers. The bill shifts some of those costs to the companies most responsible for our worsening climate without those costs being passed on to the public. An independent economic paper published by the respected Institute for Policy Integrity at the NYU School of Law supports that view.