10 Ways We’ll Fight the Trump Administration to Protect Our Environment

Earthjustice was founded on the belief that everyone has the right to a healthy environment. For more than 50 years, we’ve used the power of the law to protect that right — and under the new Trump administration, we will defend it more vigorously than ever.

We’re building on a record of success. Whenever and wherever the first Trump administration threatened our air, water, precious habitats, and climate, Earthjustice attorneys took them to court. We prevailed 85% of the time.

Read on to learn about 10 critical battles we will fight to protect the progress we have made in cleaning up our air and water, preserving the web of life, and securing the health of communities everywhere.

A 300-foot crane slowly lifts a wind turbine rotor onto a tower north of Abilene, Texas. (Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images)

Committing government to climate action

Earthjustice and our partners have made headway in pushing the government to commit to real climate action. Over the past four years, we’ve celebrated historic investments in clean energy and new rules to clean up our power sector — one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. If President Trump and members of Congress try to abandon climate action at this critical moment, we will hold them accountable while working to meet ambitious U.S. climate targets and drive the clean energy transition at the state level.

We sued the last Trump administration when they tried to roll back methane pollution standards for the oil and gas industry, weaken protections from coal ash pollution, and undo clean car standards. In his first hours back in office, President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, pushed to greatly expand fossil fuel production, and attacked clean energy. We will keep fighting for the clean energy future we need. With warming global temperatures fueling deadly, costly disasters like Hurricane Helene (costing North Carolina $60 billion in damages) and the L.A. fires (estimated at up to $150 billion and rising), climate deadlines cannot wait.

Snowy owls in the Western Arctic. Earthjustice has fought for decades on multiple fronts to protect this irreplaceable region. (Kiliii Yuyan for Earthjustice)

Protecting the Western Arctic

The Western Arctic is a biodiversity powerhouse, nourishing diverse wildlife such as polar bears, millions of migratory birds, and hundreds of thousands of caribou. For decades, Earthjustice has been defending this ecologically important region from destructive fossil fuel development.

Former president Biden took steps to protect 13 million acres of the Western Arctic before he left office, but the Trump administration immediately ordered to undo those steps and much worse in a destructive, oil-drenched agenda targeting Alaska and its communities. Massive industrial development in this region and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions would spell disaster for the entire planet, and especially for the Arctic itself, which is warming four times faster than the rest of the globe.

Earthjustice is already challenging the largest proposed oil project in the Western Arctic, ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project — a climate bomb that would unleash decades of greenhouse gases. We’ll see the Trump administration in court before they can sacrifice more of this precious ecosystem and our climate.

Valley of the Gods in Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. (Bob Wick / BLM)

Preserving national monuments

National monument designations are a way of protecting some of our country’s most beloved, historic, and culturally important places. That’s why, when the first Trump administration put national monuments on the chopping block, hundreds of thousands of people submitted outraged comments to the government condemning the move.

The Trump administration took aim at the Antiquities Act, which grants presidential powers to create national monuments on public lands — but not undo them. We immediately challenged the government’s illegal act in court, together with Native Tribes who also sued. We are ready to stop the administration a second time from selling America’s public lands to the highest-bidding polluter.

Offshore oil and gas platforms are a common site in the Gulf of Mexico, including this one off the Louisiana coast. (Brad Zweerink / Earthjustice)

Protecting our oceans from oil and gas

Nearly every U.S. president in the last 50 years has protected our most sensitive ocean territories from future oil and gas development. When the first Trump administration tried to hand over federally protected waters to oil and gas companies, we handed them defeat in court.

Former president Biden also protected an additional 625 million acres along almost every U.S. coastline before leaving office. But on day one, the new Trump administration issued an order revoking those protections, threatening millions of people living along our coasts and invaluable marine ecosystems. This was illegal: the president cannot undo the offshore protections of prior presidents. Like last time, we’ll see Trump in court, where we will once again fight to keep our oceans clean and healthy.

Raul Garcia, Earthjustice’s vice president of policy and legislation, speaks in support of the Clean Water Act outside of the Supreme Court. On October 3, 2022, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Sackett v. EPA, which revolves around which waterways deserve protections under the Clean Water Act. (Melissa Lyttle for Earthjustice)

Preventing water pollution

No one voted for dirtier drinking water. Yet polluting industries have been emboldened by Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a recent decision by the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority that stripped protections from tens of millions of acres of wetlands and streams across the U.S. Industries have already begun weaponizing Sackett in some lower courts to obtain permits for polluting projects.

We are working state by state to restore these protections and are prepared to resist further attempts to weaken the law. We have a record of success: In 2020, we won a major Clean Water Act case at the Supreme Court that reaffirmed protections for the nation’s oceans, rivers, and lakes against toxic groundwater discharges. We’ll cede no ground in this fight because everyone deserves access to safe, clean water.

Grizzly 399, a well known grizzly bear in Grand Teton National Park, with one of her cubs. Grizzly 399 was hit by a car and killed in 2024. (Troy Harrison / Getty Images)

Defending grizzly bears from extinction

Millions of people visit the Northern Rockies each year hoping to see a grizzly bear, whose nascent comeback is a testament to nature’s resilience and the power of the Endangered Species Act to protect imperiled species. Yet the Project 2025 policy playbook calls for stripping federal protections from grizzlies, threatening their recovery at a time when human threats to the bears are mounting.

Earthjustice has protected grizzlies for decades, including a successful lawsuit against the first Trump administration that at the 11th hour stopped planned trophy hunts in Wyoming and Idaho. We are prepared to defend the bears again and are advocating for a new science-based recovery vision that permanently safeguards the grizzly bear and its habitat in the Northern Rockies.

A gray wolf runs through snow in Montana. (Ibrahim Suha Derbent / Getty Images)

Upholding the Endangered Species Act

Today, the rate of biodiversity loss around the world is happening at an unprecedented pace. In the U.S. alone, over one-third of plant and animal species are currently at risk of disappearing, in large part due to human activities. Yet the incoming Trump administration intends to throw away one of our most effective tools for stopping the extinction crisis in its tracks: the Endangered Species Act.

Earthjustice was born in the same era as the Endangered Species Act, and for half a century our lawsuits have helped keep 99% of the species it protects from slipping into extinction. During the first Trump administration, we won several high-stake battles to protect imperiled species like grizzly bears, gray wolves, and sage grouse, as well as the ecosystems and the biodiversity they sustain. We also went to court to defend the ESA itself from that administration’s efforts to undermine it. We are prepared to do it again.

A warning sign posted near a pond contaminated with trichloroethylene and other hazardous chemicals at the former Reese Air Force Base near Lubbock, Texas. (Smiley N. Pool / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

Safeguarding people from toxic chemicals

Our lives are awash in chemicals, and many of them can harm us and the environment. The Trump administration is threatening to make this situation worse by attacking a critical chemical safety law known as the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

Earthjustice fights for the full use of environmental laws like TSCA to hold regulators accountable and stop companies from producing and using harmful chemicals. We’ve successfully pushed the government to adopt stronger protections against toxic chemicals like lead, PFAS, and flame retardants. Under the first Trump administration, we also won a case that forced the EPA to consider more ways that people are exposed to chemicals when it evaluates chemical risks. We’ll continue our fight to protect the health and safety of our communities, especially those who are overburdened by chemical pollution.

A cut lead water pipe is pulled from a dig site at a home in Royal Oak, Michigan. (Carlos Osorio / AP)

Removing toxic lead from our lives

Lead contamination is prevalent across the U.S. — found in our air, drinking water, and soil, and even in our dust. There is no safe level of lead exposure for anyone, and especially for children, which is why Earthjustice has worked for years alongside our partners and clients to strengthen lead standards.

The last Trump administration adopted rules that would have exposed people to lead paint and lead-contaminated drinking water. We challenged the dangerously flawed rules, paving the way for much stronger regulations when the Biden administration took over. As Project 2025 calls for undermining basic health and safety protections against toxic chemicals, Now Trump has ordered the EPA to block hundreds of millions in federal funding to states for lead service line replacement, defying Congress and putting public health at risk. We won’t back down or cede any ground on the progress we’ve made against known hazards like lead.

Environmental Protection Agency scientists sort samples for experimentation as part of drinking water and PFAS research at the EPA Center For Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response in Cincinnati. (Joshua A. Bickel / AP)

Standing up for a functional government

Federal agencies are responsible for making fair, fact-based policy decisions that impact our health and safety. This requires impartially gathering scientific data and public comments as the basis for rulemaking — and that takes skilled staff with job protection. In 2020, Earthjustice won a legal battle against the first Trump administration’s removal of independent scientist advisors from the EPA.

This time, we’ll push back on sweeping layoffs of civil servants that would remove nonpartisan agency staff with years of expertise. Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee to manage the White House Office of Management and Budget, has said he wants these civil servants to be “traumatically affected.” We’re ready to go back to court to stand up for policymaking informed by evidence and experience.