Trump Keeps Forever Chemicals in Drinking Water

• Trump’s EPA will allow “forever chemicals” to stay in drinking water, reversing an EPA rule that would limit 158 million Americans from being exposed to six hazardous chemicals , including  two of which are known or suspected to cause cancer. The rule Trump is delaying for four to six years applies to hazardous PFAS chemicals commonly found in drinking water.

Trump’s Budget Guts Clean, Affordable Energy

• Trump’s budget bill would end support for solar, wind, EVs, batteries, geothermal and even nuclear power, all the energy sources that will resist climate destruction and make energy more affordable to people and businesses. Companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars investing in U.S. clean energy, creating jobs and moving away from climate polluting fossil fuels, but Trump would halt that life-saving, economy growing investments to pay for huge tax cuts to the rich and corporations.

Trump pulls out of Paris Climate Agreement

• Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, the international agreement signed by 195 countries. The Paris agreement is the core way of countries agreeing to reduce climate wrecking greenhouse gases. It means that the U.S., the biggest source of climate pollution, is denying any responsibility to reduce its output.

• Trump jeopardizes New York’s clean energy goals by halting construction of the Empire Wind project. His actions put at risk a $3 billion investment from Equinor, 1,500 jobs, and clean power for 500,000 homes. The move also threatens Biden’s national goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. Trump allowed the project to go forward weeks later after appeals from New York’s Governor and the company installing the wind turbines. 

Trump Rolls Back Protections for Clean Air and Water and fires EPA scientists

• Trump allowed greenhouse gas emitters to avoid regulation. He repealed the "endangerment finding" that had placed greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act, enabling it to be treated like other forms of air pollution.

• Trump directed the EPA to narrow the definition of "waters of the United States," reducing federal protections for wetlands, rivers, and streams. He rolled back power plant emission rules, particularly carbon capture requirements for coal plants, giving in to lobbying by the coal industry.

• Trump’s EPA plans to fire “1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists” who “clean water and wastewater improvements, air quality monitoring, the cleanup of toxic industrial sites, and other parts of the agency’s mission.

Trump gutted America's climate science infrastructure and  isolated America as a global climate pariah

• Trump sold out America's environment to fossil fuel donors, fast-tracking dirty energy projects while sabotaging the renewable energy boom - all to fulfill his "drill, baby, drill" promise to oil executives who bankrolled his campaign with $75 million. His EPA now openly serves as an oil industry lobby, abandoning clean air/water protections for 158 million Americans exposed to toxic PFAS chemicals.

Trump Harms the Health of Thousands of Residents in"Cancer Alley" 

• Trump dropped a lawsuit against  Louisiana’s  Denka chemical plant. The plant operates in an area known as "Cancer Alley," has one of the highest cancer risks in the U.S., according to the EPA, located in a predominantly Black community. The plant’s continued operations could harm the health of thousands of residents, including hundreds of young children who are especially vulnerable to carcinogens. 

Trump Staff Cuts Hinder Recovery and Forest Management while increasing logging 

• Trump fired 2,000 U.S. Forest Service employees, leaving remaining staff struggling to manage hurricane damage, wildfire risks, and critical infrastructure repairs, all of which jeopardize disaster response and forest health.

• Trump increased timber production across 280 acres of national forests and federal land. As Time magazine wrote, “Logging drastically impacts a region’s biodiversity—causing wildlife to lose their habitat and food sources and produces harmful greenhouse gas emissions. The order also directed federal agencies to look for ways to bypass endangered species protections and other environmental regulations, putting the fate of many of the nation’s long protected ecosystems at risk.”

Trump’s Attacks on Climate Research Endanger American Lives

• Trump gutted the National Climate Assessment, firing hundreds of scientists like Tulane professor Jesse Keenan, who warned that state emergency planners and city mayors are now left without the critical data they’ve relied on since 2000 to protect communities from deadly heatwaves, floods, and wildfires. The abrupt dismissal email effectively halted all work on the 2028 report mid-process.

• Trump sabotaged climate science to push his anti-science agenda, silencing researchers who translate complex climate data into actionable insights about food security, water supplies, and public health for farmers, coastal towns, and vulnerable populations across the country.

Trump fires NOAA employees - the people who warn us about severe weather.

• Trump fired more than 600 workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As Time magazine reported, “The move stands to have profound impacts on the country’s ability to protect public safety during extreme weather events that are only increasing in frequency as the planet warms. NOAA is a vital data resource on everything from hurricanes to drought, which weather forecasters, local authorities, farmers, and others around the country rely on. The agency’s weather alerts are also an essential warning system allowing communities to protect themselves from extreme weather. Last year, NOAA recorded 27 weather and climate disasters with at least $1 billion in damages, the second highest number since the agency began tracking the numbers in 1980.” 

• With hurricane season approaching, now the NOAA is scrambling to hire new employees to forecast weather in  coastal Texas and Louisiana and is also asking large numbers of meteorologists to move to offices in Alaska and across the northern Plains in Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota. 

• Trump’s NOAA  is ending its well-known “billion-dollar weather and climate disasters” database, a move that will make it next to impossible for the public to track the cost of extreme weather and climate events. The increasing occurrence and severity of some types of extreme weather events, due in part to human-caused climate change, is also amplifying devastating storms.  According to the database, there were 403 weather and climate disasters totally at least $1 billion in the United States since 1980, totaling more than $2.945 trillion.

• Trump directed AmeriCorps to place 75% of its federal staff on administrative leave, including all employees in its national disaster response program, as part of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting initiative. This decision followed Trump’s failure to appoint new leadership for AmeriCorps, leaving the agency vulnerable to abrupt dismantling. As a result, critical disaster relief efforts and youth service programs were severely disrupted. Trump’s broader push to slash federal spending led to significant cuts in AmeriCorps’ $1 billion budget, leaving thousands of service workers without jobs and jeopardizing recovery missions in hurricane-affected regions.

Trump is refusing to pay for state disasters and canceled money for disaster preventions

• Trump refused to provide disaster relief to Arkansas after severe flooding. He’s denied funding to West Virginia for flood relief and left North Carolina holding the bag for $200 million in damage from Hurricane Helena. 

• Trump ended funding for a major program that funds state efforts to reduce the risk from flooding, hurricanes and other disasters caused by climate change. He clawed back $3.6 billion earmarked for states and local governments to reduce hazard risk.

• Trump canceled a $5 million FEMA grant for Rising Sun, Maryland, leaving a flood-prone mobile home park without funding to relocate residents—even after six major floods endangered families and strained emergency responders. “This is dangerous... Why can’t we put the horse in front of the cart? It’s avoidable,” said Calvin Bonenberger Jr., the town administrator.

• Trump eliminated $23 million in disaster-preparedness funding for DePue, Illinois, halting plans to rebuild a failing sewage system that routinely floods homes with wastewater during storms. With a population of just around 1,500, the village cannot afford the $25 million project on its own. “If you don’t do anything for small communities in this country, they’re just going to get washed away,” said Daniel Hoffert, the village president.

• Trump scrapped wildfire-resilience grants, leaving residents without critical fireproofing upgrades and forcing them to wait indefinitely as wildfire risks grow. More than 30 residents were waiting for grants to protect their homes, but the delay has left the community vulnerable. “This community... is ripe for a fire to sweep through and burn it to the ground,” warned Mike Tornatore, the deputy city clerk.

• Trump fired the acting head of FEMA,  whom he appointed in January, after the FEMA Director told the agency that it should not be abolished.  As the New York Times summarized, “is now focused not just on targeting programs and policies that may assist historically marginalized groups, but also on the very law created to protect them.”

Trump moves to reduce the transition to EVs 

• Trump revoked the goal of half of new auto sales being EVs by 2030 and froze  returning to power. Roughly $3 billion dollars in funding that was allocated to expand the network of electric vehicle charging stations across the country.