Trump may rue firing experts when environmental rollbacks land in court

Amid spending freezes and policy rollbacks from Donald Trump, environmental advocacy groups are gearing up for a long series of legal showdowns with the administration.

The experience of suing Trump during his first term has left the movement better prepared, but the court battles will still be daunting, with the administration appearing to test the nation’s legal boundaries in an effort to consolidate power under the executive branch.

Trump’s firing of experts might backfire by reducing his ability to defend weakening rules, advocates say, though there are also fears, stirred by Trump and Vice-President JD Vance, that the administration will not obey court rulings.

“The authoritarian statements that the president has made and his vice-president have made, the suggestion that the executive is in some way above the law and that they might ignore the decisions of federal courts, are deeply disturbing and highly antidemocratic,” said Jason Rylander, legal director for the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.

The Guardian has approached the White House for comment.

A majority – if not all – of the environmental executive actions the president took during his first weeks in office will probably face lawsuits over concerns that they are illegal. Some court challenges have already begun.

On Wednesday last week, local and national green groups including the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Louisiana-based Healthy Gulf and the Northern Alaska Environmental Center sued federal officials for pulling Biden-era protections for federal waters from oil and gas development. And on Thursday, the Center for Biological Diversity sent a notice of intent to sue over an administration move to expedite infrastructure permits in ways that threaten wetlands.

Other litigation could take more time to develop, since some of Trump’s orders have not yet been enacted.

“We can’t litigate an executive order – we have to see how the agencies will respond and try to roll back regulations,” said Alexandria Trimble, a spokesperson for the environmental law non-profit Earthjustice. “If those actions are inconsistent with the law, then we’ll challenge.”

Advocates have been laying the groundwork for those upcoming legal battles for months, including by filing requests for more information. Last month, the Center Biological Diversity filed a suit against the Trump administration to obtain public records about the relationship between the White House and Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

And in summer 2024 – before the election even took place – the Sierra Club submitted Freedom of Information Act requests about officials they expected would come into the White House if Trump were to win.

These records requests could be crucial, said Joanne Spalding, director of the Sierra Club’s environmental law program.

“That was the work that led to [former EPA administrator] Scott Pruitt’s resignation during the first Trump term,” she said. “We were able to shed a light on inappropriate behavior of federal officials.”

During its first term, the Trump administration faced hundreds of legal challenges to its deregulatory efforts. It won in just 23% of cases, one New York University analysis found – a steep decrease from previous administrations’ average success rate of 70%.

Some environmental groups won lawsuits even more often. Earthjustice, for instance, filed more than 130 lawsuits and saw an 85% success rate, while the Center for Biological Diversity sued 266 times and won 90% of the time.

“Very often, when we sued, we won,” said Rylander.

In some ways, environmental groups are at a greater disadvantage this time around. While Trump’s first term was marked by ethics violations and scandals – which experts attribute to a lack of experience – this term, the president came into office armed with detailed plans to gut environmental policy such as the infamous Project 2025.

Another edge Trump has over his opponents: three of the nine members of the supreme court are his own appointees, and three others were picked by other Republican presidents.

“It’s the most conservative supreme court we’ve seen in many decades,” said Rylander. “We have seen even across the Biden administration that they have been taking a much stricter look at federal agency power and particularly a much more skeptical look at environmental law.”

Certain changes in the legal landscape may also work against environmentalists. For instance, a July supreme court decision altered the statute of limitations for challenging agency actions that could prove to have deleterious effects for the planet, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

Previously, parties had six years to challenge new agency regulations after they were crafted. Now parties have six years beginning from when they are first affected by a rule, meaning new corporations may be able to challenge decades-old rules.

“So, for instance, if a Clean Water Act regulation was enacted in 1985, someone could find a way to challenge it today if they’re only now subject to that regulation,” Gerrard said.

In other ways, however, the Trump administration may be in a weaker legal position now than in its first term. For instance, the supreme court in June overturned the Chevron doctrine, a 40-year-old legal framework which directed courts to defer to the expertise of federal agencies to determine how to interpret and implement laws.

Climate advocates have lamented the decision to rescind the doctrine, saying it hamstrings agencies’ ability to protect both public health and the environment. But surprisingly, it could also make it easier to oppose the Trump administration’s actions, said Daniel Farber, who directs the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment.

“Down the road we will see a lot of proceedings to repeal and/or replace existing regulations. Those are probably also going to be the subject of litigation,” he said. “In some instances, the agency will rely on a novel legal theory to justify its action, but since Chevron is gone, cases will be decided on the legal issues for themselves.”

The administration may also be undermining its deregulatory goals with its mass layoffs and firings, advocates say. By leaving agencies with fewer experts and less capacity, it could make it harder for them to enact rules, especially in legally defensible ways.

“There are technicalities to worry about,” said Spalding, of the Sierra Club. “If you’re going to gut the agency, how are you going to manage to develop the scientific record that you need, the technical record that you need, to justify a weaker rule?”

Environmental groups also say their experience from suing Trump years ago has left them better prepared to tackle Trump this term.

“They have the benefit of experience from last time, but so do we,” said Sean Donahue, a lawyer who represents the environmental non-profit Environmental Defense Fund.

Yet Trump officials during this term have demonstrated an apparent disregard for the law, said Donahue. Last week, the president posted on social media a quote often attributed to Napoleon – “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law” – signaling a lack of interest in comporting with the US legal system.

“What they are better at is acting like they have a mandate to just get rid of laws through what I would almost call extra-legal means,” Donahue said.

This “authoritarian streak” is “keeping many of us up at night”, Rylander said of the environmental movement.

“The great fear is that this administration is not a normal, if slightly amped-up, Republican administration, and that battle ahead is going to be one not just to preserve our environmental laws or to make progress on climate change, but to save our democracy,” he said.

Will the legal system be strong enough to withstand these threats?

“We will just have to watch and see how this plays out,” Rylander said.