100 days of the Trump administration
From the first day in office, the Trump administration has begun an all-out assault on our nation’s most critical environmental protections — and we’ve been fighting back at every turn.
By purging public servants who safeguard our parks and public lands, manufacturing a fake “energy emergency” to push fossil fuels, and gutting basic protections that provide clean air and water, this administration has made one thing clear: the environment and the health of our communities are expendable.
Here’s the truth, no one voted for dirty air and water. This election was not a mandate to contaminate our rivers with forever chemicals, pollute our air, abandon climate action, or trade away our public lands to the highest bidders.
Here’s how SELC has jumped in action over the past 100 days:
- Suing to restore funds promised to Southern communities: To unlock federal funding that was awarded for transformational community projects across the country, we’re taking the Trump administration to federal court. Locally, this unlawful grab of Congressionally approved funding is threatening the resources and jobs for local nonprofits, farmers, and our communities needed to withstand climate change.
- Advocating for fired public workers: Congress can and should tell Trump administration officials to rehire more of the federal employees they fired en masse shortly after taking office. We’re urging Congress to demand their rehiring and restore integrity to the agencies that play such a critical role in our daily lives.
- Ensuring access to government documents: Hiding or stalling the delivery of public information about environmentally destructive projects is one way the administration is able to fast-track its priorities. We’re working to get the public information we need to continue defending communities in the South.
- Saving our public data: Since Inauguration Day, we’ve seen huge swaths of public data get wiped from federal servers but a nationwide group of data defenders worked around the clock to save and stand up these important tools. SELC’s geospatial team developed a new website to host the missing information and copies of tools needed to access and use it for our partner groups across the South.
- Advancing progress on local and state levels: Two recent wins in Virginia took a massive, polluting data center and power plant off the table in Pittsylvania County. We also celebrated a step toward protecting a historic Black community in Cumberland County when the planning commission recommended the council reject a harmful landfill proposal. We’re also moving the needle on solar access in rural North Carolina.
“For 100 days, we have stood in the way of this administration as it demonstrates its commitment to empower polluters at the expense of families and communities,” says Geoff Gisler, SELC’s program director.
No one voted for dirty air and water.
What we’re up against
Three patterns define this administration’s environmental attacks:
- Consolidating power within the White House.
- Dismantling protections for people, places, and wildlife.
- Prioritizing industry over the public interest.
Let’s take a deeper look at federal actions over the last 100 days and their potential effects on the South.
Consolidating power:
Silencing communities, fast-tracking pollution
By slashing budgets, firing watchdogs, and installing industry insiders to run agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, this administration is concentrating power to bulldoze protections and silence public opposition.
Drastic staffing and budget cuts plus false emergency declarations made by this administration are pure power grabs that put polluters in control.
GEOFF GISLER, PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Just last week, the Department of the Interior announced it is moving ahead with its late April guidance to block community voices and limit government accountability while fast-tracking destructive projects – again, justified by citing the administration’s so-called “energy emergency,” even though the U.S. is producing more fossil fuels than any point in history.
This guidance gutting environmental reviews will unnecessarily sacrifice clean air and water by pushing forward flawed projects without any community input. The administration is taking this step to silence dissent because many fossil fuel projects are harmful, unnecessary, and cannot provide the benefits of renewable energy.
“The Trump administration’s efforts could be especially harmful in the South, where monopoly utilities are pushing a massive methane gas buildout fueled by the rapid expansion of the data center industry,” says Gisler. “This would mean more harmful, unnecessary pipelines and fossil fuels in our communities and more extreme storms that wreck our region.”
Dismantling protections
Polluting our water, air, lands, and threatening wildlife
Since taking office, the Trump administration has made nearly 100 proposals or executive orders that aim to undermine longstanding environmental laws and pave the way for polluters:
- Clean air and water: From plans to weaken regulations on toxic forever chemicals and coal ash that pollute our drinking water to a two-year exemption from a rule that will allow coal-fired power plants to pump mercury, arsenic, and benzene into our air – it’s clear this administration is targeting clean air, clean water, and our precious public lands.
- Environmental justice: President Trump is doubling down on efforts to strip away protections for people that have grappled with disproportionate environmental impacts for generations. Cancelling critical programs in Black and Brown communities and removing certain words from websites to censor our language will not make us stop fighting for a healthy and safe environment for all.
- Wildlife: It’s not just people that are impacted by the rollbacks; our nation’s wildlife stands to suffer greatly from reduced protections as this administration takes aim at the Endangered Species Act. The South is home to globally significant populations of salamanders, freshwater mussels and fish, migratory birds, and other iconic species such as critically endangered red wolves. We can’t afford more biodiversity loss as we undergo the sixth mass extinction. We need the ESA, a fundamental law protecting threatened and endangered wildlife.
“The administration’s efforts to override our foundational laws, especially its intent to sweep away the rights of communities overburdened with pollution to raise their concerns and press the government to make it better, are unacceptable” says Gisler.
Geoff Gisler, Program DirectorWe know that many communities of color across the country face a heavy pollution burden; the actions proposed in the administration’s first 100 days in office would make that burden heavier.
Want to track this administration’s regulatory actions? This tracker by Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program has a complete list of regulatory actions aimed at destroying the environment.
Prioritizing profits:
Southern communities stand to suffer
The administration promised economic growth — but slashing federal jobs and terminating or freezing billions in funding essential to protecting clean air and water tells a different story. Here are the ways the White House is putting profits for a few over people and our public lands:
- Federal workers: President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, headed up by billionaire Elon Musk, has laid off an estimated 200,000 federal workers – firing many employees responsible for protecting clean air, clean water, and our nation’s natural treasures.
- Public lands: On March 1, the Trump administration signed an executive order calling for the immediate expansion of timber production on our public lands. Encouraging logging only harms the forests we desperately need to protect – especially our oldest trees, which will take centuries to regrow if this administration succeeds in logging them. Logging our public lands for short-term financial gains could bring long-term devastation.
- Federal funding: The Administration’s freeze on billions of dollars of federal funding harms our communities and stalls economic gains and job growth in the South — particularly in industries related to clean energy and electric vehicle manufacturing. Our region has received more than $20 billion in federal funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. That investment has spurred an additional $78 billion in private sector growth and supports more than 432,000 jobs in our region. That economic and job growth is now in jeopardy as the administration seeks to revive the heavily polluting coal industry.
Built for this
For nearly 40 years, SELC has worked across political lines with hundreds of partners to protect Southern communities. We’ve stood with families exposed to toxic forever chemicals, businesses advancing clean energy and the jobs that come with it, and communities pushing back against offshore drilling.
This moment goes beyond any specific issue set — it’s about the right of every American to have clean air and water and a healthy community to live in — no matter who’s in power.
Rest assured, we will fight these anti-environmental actions and continue to work alongside communities across the South to improve lives and build a brighter future.