President Trump Executive Orders
US exits Paris Agreement after submitting Nationally Determined Contributions. In mid-December, the Biden Administration announced it submitted the US target under the Paris Agreement: cutting net carbon emissions by 61 to 66 percent below 2005 levels by 2035. At this writing, only two other countries, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates, have submitted their Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC. Senior Biden Administration officials said that such a cut in CO2 emissions could be achieved even without the federal government, provided that state and local governments act. On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) mandating the US to again withdraw from the Paris Agreement. The US commitment to the Paris Agreement has swung in recent years. The US became a signatory in April 2016, under then-President Barack Obama. In 2017, President Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement; that process took effect November 4, 2020, due to a lengthy notice period required in the first years of the agreement. On January 20, 2021, the day after his inauguration, President Joe Biden signed an EO to rejoin the agreement, and the US formally rejoined on February 19, 2021. Notwithstanding the US’s second withdrawal, we expect to see certain US states and cities commit to Paris Agreement goals. On January 23, 2025, Michael R. Bloomberg announced that Bloomberg Philanthropies, joined by subnational climate coalitions, “will ensure that the United States meets its global climate obligations,” including “covering funding obligations” to UN Climate Change and upholding the US reporting commitment. Bloomberg is the former mayor of New York City and the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions.
President Trump’s week-one Executive Orders signal significant changes coming to environmental law. Several of the more than 100 EOs and presidential directives issued by President Trump in his first days in office aim to directly impact and significantly transform environmental and energy law and policy. In this alert, we take a closer look at the EOs and what they mean for stakeholders.
OMB places temporary freeze on agency grants, loans, and other financial assistance: What we know now. We are analyzing the memo released by the Office of Management and Budget on January 27, 2025, which places a temporary freeze on agency grant, loan, and other financial assistance programs. This alert sets out the information we have at this time.
Sweeping changes to US energy policy. President Trump has issued three Executive Orders and a memorandum articulating broad policy objectives for the energy sector – Unleashing American Energy; Declaring a National Energy Emergency; Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential; and Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects. Our alert takes a look.
Workplace diversity and environmental justice initiatives. The numerous Executive Orders and directives issued by President Trump on his first day in office include several that impact the use of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and environmental policy in the federal government and that may touch every workplace across the US that maintains DEI policies and practices. Among them is “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” which impacts the use of “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) or ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA)” by the federal government, private companies, and other institutions. This EO, issued on January 21, represents a potential sea change in DEI practices for every organization (both federal contractors and private employers) across US that maintains DEI policies and practices. Learn more in our alert.
On January 20, the new Administration issued “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing,” reversing the Biden Administration’s approach to these issues, such as the USDA’s Equity Commission and an array of EPA community grants. The Executive order (EO) states that federal employment practices “shall reward individual initiative, skills, performance, and hard work and shall not under any circumstances consider DEI or DEIA factors, goals, policies, mandates, or requirements.” The order further directs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), assisted by the Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), to coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including “illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.” Among the actions mandated in the EO: all federal agencies have 60 days to “terminate all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions.”
Also issued on January 20 is “Reforming The Federal Hiring Process And Restoring Merit To Government Service,” which states that certain “impermissible factors … such as one’s commitment to illegal racial discrimination under the guise of ‘equity,’ or one’s commitment to the invented concept of ‘gender identity’” – have harmed federal hiring practices. The EO gives the OMB, OPM, the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and the Administrator of the new Department of Government Efficiency 120 days to develop and send to agency heads a new “Federal Hiring Plan that brings to the Federal workforce only highly skilled Americans dedicated to the furtherance of American ideals, values, and interests.” Learn more about the implications of these two EOs by contacting Holly R. Lake.
US auto and transportation policy at an inflection point. January 2025 – including the first week of Donald Trump’s second term as President of the United States – likely marks the beginning of substantial changes in federal transportation law and regulation, including a number of potentially disruptive changes to regulation of the motor vehicle industry and related funding and incentives. Our alert takes a deep dive.
Costs of food and fuel. In addition to the above EOs, on January 22, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum concerning price relief and the cost-of-living crisis, which, among other directives, orders federal agencies to “eliminate… climate policies driving up the costs of food and fuel.”
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