The Environmental Impacts of Trump 2.0’s First Year in Office – GreenBuildingAdvisor

By Justin R. Wolf | February 3, 2026

When considering the environmental and economic impacts of the Trump administration’s climate and energy policies carried out in 2025 alone, the wreckage laid bare is quantifiably staggering. It began last January, shortly after he re-entered the White House, when Trump formally declared a national energy emergency, a thinly veiled gesture designed to open up federal lands and waters for the drilling of oil and natural gas.

The Department of Energy responded in kind by invoking the Federal Power Act—a 1920 law originally passed to build hydroelectric plants—to keep aging coal- and oil-powered power plants from shuttering, many of which had been phasing down their operations. In subsequent months, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) moved to repeal a rule on cutting mercury emissions from coal-fueled power plants; announced plans to revoke the Endangerment Finding, the legal and scientific basis for regulating greenhouse gas emissions; and extended deadlines for utility companies to clean up coal ash landfills. And with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer, new regulations set in motion the quick demise of federal tax credits for wind and solar energy projects, home energy efficiency upgrades, and domestically made electric vehicles. All told, roughly $14 billion in clean energy projects were cancelled in 2025.

The full list of climate and energy regulatory rollbacks, rescissions, and revised rules extends well beyond what I summarized above. (The Times offered a comprehensive summary late last year.) What is clear is that, when considered in tandem with Trump’s stated goals of tackling inflation and affordability, achieving energy independence, and reviving the country’s manufacturing sectors, nearly every proposed or finalized climate and energy policy coming from this administration runs counter to said goals.

I recently reconnected with Heather T. Clark, a senior fellow at MIT and former White House senior…