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Institutional investors and policy experts agree Biden will start overturning as many of the 70 or so Trump regulatory orders against former President Obama’s climate regulations as possible. Then, many expect him to expand regulations through executive order. “My guess is that the Biden Administration will move into regulating other sources of energy; cement plants, refineries, and other classes of industrial facilities,” said Richard Revesz, a professor at the NYU School of Law. “The regulatory work will be done. You don’t need Congress for that.”

Since many of Trump’s regulatory actions are being challenged in court the Biden team could settle the arguments. Although the Trump administration was aggressive in its deregulation, it has not had as much success in court. “The overall success rate right now is 15.6%” for cases on deregulation or policy making, which “stands in stark contrast to prior administrations,” Bethany Davis Noll, litigation director for the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law.

Biden’s regulatory agenda is widely expected to be more ambitious than his Capitol Hill plans, given the decent chances that Republicans will retain control of the Senate and would reject major climate action. “It would have to be an across-the-government effort so very ambitious goals can be realized,” says Richard Revesz, a law professor at New York University. “I expect to see all levers of the federal government mobilized in appropriate ways to at first repeal very pernicious policies of the Trump administration and then set forth an attractive affirmative agenda.”

Trump’s agencies are now in court defending several major rollbacks, including weakening the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. The Biden administration could ask the courts to put those and other cases on hold while it rewrites regulations, says Bethany Davis Noll, litigation director at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity. “The big picture is that a lot of work on the environment is going to continue to happen at the agency level,” she says. “Their biggest priority would be rewriting these rules.”

Joe Biden could erase much of President Donald Trump’s four-year legacy of energy and climate deregulation with the stroke of his pen, according to regulatory experts, but replacing it with something new and durable may prove trickier. Further, many of Trump’s domestic energy deregulatory policies never took full effect due to court challenges. The Trump administration has lost 84% of its energy- and environment-related lawsuits, according to New York University Law School’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

The Trump administration has won only 36% of court challenges to agency decisions before GOP-appointed judges, according to a study by Bethany Davis Noll, a professor at the New York University School of Law. Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush fared better before politically aligned judges in such cases, winning 68% to 84% of the time. Thomson Reuters Legal summarized the study, while Noll and Christine Pries summarized the findings in an article for the Hill. The study counts an appellate panel as Republican if a majority of the judges are appointed by GOP presidents.

Various non-governmental groups and analysts are seeking to influence climate and energy policy in the post-election period. A new paper, by the Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) at New York University Law School, focuses on options to improve infrastructure development in an effort to stimulate the economy, boost social equity and reduce carbon emissions. The paper is not geared toward a specific administration, though it recommends changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) unlikely to be embraced by a Trump administration. These include adding standardized methodologies and tools to evaluate climate impacts, and compressing permitting time for key categories of sustainable infrastructure, including by increasing staffing and resources focused on expedited permitting.

Democrats prioritized climate in the "Moving Forward Act," the $1.5 trillion infrastructure package that passed the House in July. That legislation, H.R. 2, included a $100 billion investment in low-emission mass transit and a $75 billion investment in clean energy. "I think H.R. 2 was a good step forward. I would imagine that if Biden is elected, there will be an attempt to use that as a starting point but incorporate some new concerns from the Biden platforms," said Derek Sylvan, strategy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law and the author of a recent report on federal infrastructure policy. And if Democrats maintain their majority in the House and reclaim control of the Senate, the climate provisions would be an easier sell, Sylvan said.

President Donald Trump has won court cases challenging agency decisions by his administration 36% of the time when facing judges appointed by Republican presidents and panels of judges whose majority was made up of Republican appointees, according to a forthcoming analysis by NYU School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity. Previous studies show that four of his predecessors, when also up against politically-aligned judges, won cases 64% to 84% of the time.

Biden has already said that if he wins, he plans to roll back more than 100 Trump administration public health and environmental regulations. We asked Bethany Davis Noll, litigation director for the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, to explain how Biden will execute these rollbacks if he takes the election.