A Democracy Drive Thread
Withdrawal from the Paris accord, a coal revival, canceled clean-energy grants, and the defunding and silencing of federal climate science — a systematic effort to strip climate change out of U.S. policy, and even off the government’s own websites.
This thread is a dated, sourced record of the second Trump administration’s campaign against climate action: the retreat from international agreements, the revival of coal and the rollback of emissions rules, the cancellation of clean-energy funding, and the firing of scientists and deletion of the data that document a warming planet. Each entry links to its source.
January 20, 2025
On the ground
On January 20, 2025, hours into his second term, Trump signed Executive Order 14162, “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements,” directing the United States to withdraw from the Paris climate accord — the near-universal treaty to limit global warming — for the second time, having first pulled out in his initial term before President Biden rejoined. The same day he declared a “national energy emergency,” moved to expand fossil-fuel production, and paused new federal wind-power leasing.
January 23, 2025
In his own words
Addressing the World Economic Forum by video on January 23, 2025, Trump pitched coal as the backup power source for AI data centers and dismissed concerns about the dirtiest fossil fuel, claiming nothing could ever knock it offline.
“Nothing can destroy coal. Not the weather, not a bomb — nothing.”
January 27, 2025
On the ground
In a note dated January 27, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio informed the United Nations that the United States was rescinding all of its outstanding pledges — about $4 billion — to the Green Climate Fund, the largest international fund helping more than 100 developing countries adapt to a warming world and cut emissions. The move, announced in early February, followed Trump’s first-day executive order revoking U.S. climate-finance commitments. The U.S. had pledged $6 billion under Presidents Obama and Biden but delivered only $2 billion.
February 11, 2025
On the ground
On February 11, 2025, Trump directed agencies to roll back modern efficiency standards for lightbulbs and to loosen water- and energy-use rules for household appliances, casting a return to incandescent bulbs and higher-flow fixtures as “common sense.” Efficiency standards cut both consumer energy bills and the emissions from generating that power; the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act’s “anti-backsliding” provision makes rolling them back legally difficult.
February 18, 2025
In his own words
Speaking to a conservative forum in London in February 2025, Wright — former CEO of the fracking company Liberty Energy — attacked international climate targets as both unachievable and harmful.
“Net zero 2050 is a sinister goal, it's a terrible goal.”
February 21, 2025
On the ground
NASA’s chief scientist, Kate Calvin, who was to co-chair a planning meeting, was blocked from attending. The U.S. had been a leading contributor to the reports.
February 24, 2025
On the ground
Beginning in February 2025, the National Science Foundation terminated grants for more than 100 already-approved climate research projects — tens of millions of dollars — as part of a broader purge of awards flagged for “climate” and diversity language. Researchers reported being told to scrub terms like “climate change” and “greenhouse gas emissions” from proposals; the share of NSF grants mentioning “climate change” in their titles or abstracts fell from 889 in 2023 to 148, a 77% drop, as scientists self-censored to preserve funding.
February 27, 2025
On the ground
On February 27, 2025, the administration fired about 800 probationary employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — as much as 10% of its workforce — in a wave of DOGE-driven cuts. Those let go included National Weather Service meteorologists who produce local forecasts and staff at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, whose weather and climate models are considered among the best in the world. A court briefly blocked the terminations before they were allowed to proceed; NOAA later sought a further 17% workforce cut.
February 28, 2025
On the ground
In late February 2025, the United States notified South Africa, Indonesia, and Vietnam that it was withdrawing from the Just Energy Transition Partnerships — coalitions of wealthy nations, launched under U.S. leadership, that had pledged roughly $45 billion to help developing countries shift from coal to clean energy. The pullout, following Trump’s revocation of the U.S. International Climate Finance Plan, stripped out the American grants and investment guarantees; the EU, UK, and Japan said they would remain.
March 3, 2025
On the ground
In a March 3, 2025 memo, the Trump-appointed head of the GSA’s Public Buildings Service ordered federal EV charging stations deemed “not mission-critical” disconnected “at the breaker” — part of a plan to retire roughly 8,000 charging plugs across government properties and cancel the contracts that maintain them. The GSA also suspended orders of zero-emission vehicles and moved to offload the electric cars bought under Biden’s push to electrify the federal fleet.
March 11, 2025
On the ground
On March 11, 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin moved to terminate roughly $20 billion in grants from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund — the Inflation Reduction Act’s “green bank,” meant to finance clean-energy and emissions-cutting projects — sending immediate termination notices to eight nonprofit recipients and freezing funds already parked at an outside bank. Awardees sued and courts scrutinized the legality of the clawback; Congress later repealed the fund’s remaining money in the July 2025 tax law. In August 2026 the full D.C. Circuit, in a divided ruling, held the terminations unlawful and restored the injunction, reversing a September 2025 panel decision; the money was held back to give the EPA time to appeal to the Supreme Court.
In his own words
As Hegseth moved to strip climate considerations out of Defense Department planning in March 2025, he dismissed an issue the military has long treated as a national-security and readiness risk.
“The Department of Defense does not do climate change crap. We do training and warfighting.”
March 12, 2025
On the ground
On March 12, 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin unveiled 31 simultaneous deregulatory actions targeting rules on air, water, and climate pollution from power plants, oil and gas operations, vehicles, and factories — and moved to reconsider the 2009 “endangerment finding,” the scientific determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health that underpins virtually all federal climate regulation. Zeldin called it “the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history.” The agency also announced it was closing its environmental-justice offices.
March 14, 2025
On the ground
On March 14, 2025, the administration moved to cancel the lease on the Hawaii laboratory tied to the Mauna Loa Observatory, and its May budget proposal called for eliminating NOAA’s research office and Global Monitoring Laboratory outright. That would shutter Mauna Loa along with monitoring stations in Alaska, American Samoa, and at the South Pole — ending the pole-to-pole greenhouse-gas record that has run since 1958 and produced the “Keeling Curve,” one of the most iconic and indisputable charts documenting human-caused climate change.
On the ground
On March 14, 2025, Trump signed a Congressional Review Act resolution nullifying the EPA rule that would have implemented the Inflation Reduction Act’s “Waste Emissions Charge” — the first-ever federal fee on a greenhouse gas, levied on oil and gas operators for excess methane, a pollutant far more potent than carbon dioxide. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that scrapping the fee would cost taxpayers about $7.2 billion in lost revenue over a decade.
March 25, 2025
On the ground
In March 2025, the USDA unfroze billions in Rural Energy for America Program grants — awarded to farmers and rural businesses for solar, wind, and efficiency projects — but gave recipients 30 days to “voluntarily” rewrite their applications to remove “harmful DEIA” and “far-left climate” language and align with Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” executive order. The department later said it would issue no new REAP grants until it rewrote the program’s rules.
April 4, 2025
On the ground
In Florida, 18 of the 22 counties set to share nearly $250 million voted for Trump. FEMA called the program “wasteful and ineffective” and “more concerned with climate change.” Twenty states sued, and a judge blocked the administration from reallocating the money.
April 8, 2025
On the ground
On April 8, 2025, Trump signed a package of executive orders aimed at reviving the declining coal industry: directing agencies to treat coal as a critical mineral, open public lands to coal mining, and keep aging coal plants running to meet electricity demand from data centers and AI. A companion action exempted at least 66 coal-fired power plants — including the single dirtiest plant in the country — from a 2024 rule tightening limits on mercury and other hazardous air pollutants, pushing their compliance deadline to 2029. Trump routinely praises “beautiful, clean coal,” though coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel.
April 16, 2025
On the ground
On April 16, 2025, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered a stop to construction on Empire Wind 1, an 810-megawatt offshore wind farm off New York that was already fully federally permitted and under construction, claiming the prior administration had “rushed” its approval. The halt followed Trump’s Day One executive order withdrawing all federal waters from offshore-wind leasing and pausing permits for wind projects nationwide. Work resumed weeks later after negotiations with New York, but the administration halted the project again in December 2025.
April 22, 2025
In his own words
Appearing on Fox Business on Earth Day, April 22, 2025, Wright disparaged the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean-energy tax credits and argued wind and solar demand far more land and materials than fossil fuels.
“I think it's a big mistake.”
In his own words
Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and withdrew from the Paris Agreement on his first day.
April 28, 2025
On the ground
On April 28, 2025, the administration released all of the roughly 400 volunteer scientists and experts working on the next National Climate Assessment — the flagship, congressionally mandated report on how climate change is affecting the country — telling them its scope was being “reevaluated.” By June 30 the existing assessments had been removed from federal websites with no explanation or replacement. White House budget director Russ Vought pushed to scrap the work begun under Biden and install researchers reflecting the administration’s claim that climate change is not a serious threat. The administration also dissolved the federal advisory committee that oversees the assessment, leaving the congressionally mandated report with neither authors nor oversight.
May 23, 2025
On the ground
OMB general counsel Mark Paoletta called the watchdog’s finding “wrong and legally indefensible.” The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program was funded by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. A federal judge later ruled the freeze unlawful.
May 30, 2025
On the ground
Details released by the Office of Management and Budget on May 30, 2025 would end funding for clean-energy deployment, which the administration called “Green New Scam interests,” and eliminate Interior Department programs that support offshore wind.
July 23, 2025
On the ground
On July 23, 2025, the department said it was “not critical for the federal government to have a role” in the $11 billion project. Hawley had said on July 10 that he secured the cancellation in a conversation with Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
July 24, 2025
On the ground
The nonpartisan group E2 found $22 billion in clean-energy projects canceled in the first six months of 2025, before Trump’s tax law even passed. More than $11.7 billion in investment and 11,700 jobs were canceled, delayed or closed in Republican-held districts. “These cancellations aren’t just numbers on a balance book. They’re jobs, paychecks and opportunities,” E2 said. By July 2026, Reuters counted $83 billion in delayed or canceled projects linked to Trump’s clean-energy policies.
July 27, 2025
In his own words
Trump spent much of the Scotland trip railing against wind turbines, a grudge that began more than a decade ago over an offshore wind farm visible from his Aberdeenshire golf course.
““We will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States. They are killing us.””
July 29, 2025
On July 29, 2025, the EPA proposed to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding — the scientific determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, which is the legal foundation for every federal climate rule — along with all greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles. Officials framed the move as ending the “climate change religion.” Scientists and environmental groups sued, noting the Energy Department report used to justify it contradicted the overwhelming scientific consensus.
August 8, 2025
On the ground
The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement approved the West Antelope II South Tract mining plan modification, releasing 14.5 million tons of publicly owned coal in Converse County, Wyoming. The agency issued a Finding of No Significant Impact — the determination that lets a project proceed without a full environmental impact statement — for burning coal whose emissions are the single largest source of U.S. power-sector carbon. The mine, operated by Navajo Transitional Energy Company, employs 359 people across two counties and will now run through 2037. Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon welcomed the decision.
September 8, 2025
In his own words
Analyses find covering well under 1% of the world’s land with solar panels could meet global energy demand.
““Even if you wrapped the entire planet in a solar panel, you would only be producing 20% of global energy.””
September 10, 2025
In his own words
In seven months Burgum had blocked or stalled at least six major wind projects, including one off New England that was 80% complete.
““Under this administration, there is not a future for offshore wind because it is too expensive and not reliable enough.””
September 16, 2025
On the ground
In a Sept. 15, 2025 brief in federal court in Burlington, the department called the 2024 law “unlawful on its face” and urged the court to “end Vermont’s lawless experiment.” The DOJ and EPA had sued Vermont and New York in May under Trump’s order to protect energy companies from state laws. Polling showed 74% of voters, including a majority of Republicans, support making oil and gas companies pay for climate damages.
September 23, 2025
In his own words
He called renewable energy a “scam” and the carbon footprint “a hoax made up by people with evil intentions,” warned Europe it would be ruined by migration and green energy, and urged nations to buy American oil and gas.
““I’m telling you that if you don’t get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail.””
September 29, 2025
On the ground
The Bureau of Land Management made up to 13.1 million acres available for new federal coal leases — 6.7 million in Montana, 3.8 million in North Dakota, 2.2 million in Wyoming, 1.6 million in Colorado, 200,000 in New Mexico and 48,000 in Utah — more than three times the acreage the “One Big Beautiful Bill” actually mandated. It simultaneously cut the federal coal royalty rate from 12.5% to 7%, reducing what the public is paid for coal taken from public land, and lifted the Biden-era moratorium on new leasing in the Powder River Basin. Leases were also opened near Zion and Bryce Canyon in Utah. The economics did not follow the policy: subsequent federal coal auctions drew few or no bidders, the industry having moved on regardless of what Washington made available.
October 14, 2025
On the ground
The canceled awards, announced in mid-October 2025, included American Battery Technology’s planned cathode-grade lithium hydroxide plant; the company said the termination followed a May memo subjecting all of the program’s grants to audits, and it appealed. Other recipients included Ascend Elements, Anovion, ICL and LuxWall. DOE said the projects missed milestones and were not viable. Days earlier, the department had canceled billions in clean-energy awards, mostly in Democratic states, after budget director Russ Vought announced the cuts on social media.
October 17, 2025
On the ground
Maritime nations had agreed on the net-zero framework earlier in 2025; adoption was expected at the October meeting. Trump urged countries to vote no, posting that “the United States will not stand for this global green new scam tax on shipping,” and the U.S. threatened retaliation. Saudi Arabia then moved to adjourn for a year, and more than half the countries agreed. Delegates said Washington pressured developing nations.
November 20, 2025
On the ground
The new chart, released Nov. 20, 2025, no longer includes the renewable-energy office that housed research on solar, wind and vehicle technology and funded work behind LED bulbs and electric trucks. The Biden-era Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations was eliminated. New divisions include the Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office and an Office of Fusion.
December 9, 2025
On the ground
An October 2025 version of the page, saved by the Wayback Machine, said human activities had released large amounts of carbon dioxide and that natural processes do not explain the warming observed over the last century. By December, the page mentioned only natural phenomena. Seven scientists and three former EPA officials told the AP the change is misleading. “Ignoring fossil fuel pollution as the driving force behind the climate changes we have seen in our lifetime is like pretending cigarettes don’t cause lung cancer,” said former EPA climate adviser Jeremy Symons.
December 22, 2025
On the ground
On Dec. 22, 2025, Interior paused Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island and Connecticut, Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind in New York, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind. It said turbine blades and towers create radar interference. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said Revolution Wind had been fully vetted, including on national security, and called the move “vindictive harassment.” A federal judge had already vacated Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order against wind energy as unlawful. Shares of the developers dropped.
February 11, 2026
On the ground
The Feb. 11, 2026 executive order directs the Defense Department to form purchase agreements with coal plants for an unspecified amount. The six plants getting upgrade money are in Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. The order leans on the “energy emergency” Trump declared on his first day, which he has also used to keep aging coal plants open past their planned closures and exempt them from air rules. The Tennessee Valley Authority announced the same day that it would delay closing two coal plants.