In the News

In his first term, Trump repealed the Obama administration’s signature climate policy, the Clean Power Plan, and rolled back a host of other environmental rules. But the majority of the 100-plus domestic environmental regulations he rolled back remain in limbo, after successful challenges by states and green groups, according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Integrity.

A rational administration would look at the decline in demand for oil and gas leases and see it as an opportunity to hit pause and come up with a fiscally and environmentally smarter way to manage public lands. Instead, the Trump administration is rushing ahead with these lease sales, locking in more harmful greenhouse gas emissions while failing to earn a decent return for American taxpayers.

President Trump has initiated the most aggressive deregulation in modern history. Courts in the country have been the only constraint on his approach to climate deregulation. According to a database kept by New York University’s nonpartisan Institute for Policy Integrity, the Environmental Protection Agency, challenged by those concerned by the agency’s reversal of the policies adopted during the Obama period, Trump has won only 13 cases in the courts. The EPA won on nine out of 47 cases while the Interior Department has won four out of 22 cases. The Trump administration’s overall win rate has been under 16% compared with win rates of about 70% for the Obama and Bush administrations.

Several programs have tracked Trump administration rollbacks of regulations affecting the environment, including the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University Law School, the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School, and a partnership between the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School and Columbia University's Earth Institute. Many rollbacks have been challenged in the courts as environmental advocates have decried the measures, saying business profits have taken precedent over human health and wildlife and resource protection.

The election campaign is a good time to take record of Trump’s actual handling of the environment. In short, it could be much worse. He’s lost 85% of his administration’s legal attempts to roll back environmental regulations, according to Richard Revesz of New York University, one of the nation’s leading experts on environmental law. That’s compared to an average win rate of 70% for past administrations. “It’s a really, really bad record,” Revesz said.

Although the courts over the last century have permitted greater delegation of legislative authority to executive agencies and have generally deferred to agency interpretations of vague statutes, courts may be moving to hold agencies more accountable. According to the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, a large percentage of lawsuits challenging Trump Administration regulations have succeeded in court. Obama Administration rules also faced setbacks in court, as judges increasingly expected agencies to justify their actions with benefit-cost analysis.

The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg could lead to a more conservative bench that backs some Trump rollbacks. A new administration, however, could drop the government’s defense of cases still in court, or stop work on unfinished rules. “You need two terms as a president now to have long-lasting regulatory change,” says Bethany Davis Noll, litigation director at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

While Trump has sought to tear up the country’s climate regulation, his efforts have been met with major challenges. Because Massachusetts vs EPA still stands, the administration is still technically responsible for fighting climate change, and his rollbacks need to show sound legal and scientific reasoning—which can be hard to come by given Trump’s primary motivation has little to do with science or law. This reality has tied up many of his deregulatory moves in the courts. The administration has only succeeded in 15 of the 87 attempted rollbacks that have been litigated, according to data from the Institute for Policy Integrity.

Almost all of Trump’s attempts at deregulation—some 100 rules that he’s tried to eliminate or weaken—are being challenged in court, and environmentalists are steadily winning. According to the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University, the Trump administration has lost 69 of the 83 legal challenges it’s faced in its deregulatory blitz. 

The administration has only succeeded in 18 of 107, or about 17%, of its regulation-related court cases, according to a tracker by New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity. Historically, the average success rate among administrations is 70%, said Bethany Davis Noll, litigation director at the New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity.