Air Date: Week of April 11, 2025

President Donald Trump is applauded by a group of coal miners at the April 8th event where he signed the executive order designed to block state action on climate change. (Photo: The White House, Flickr, U.S. Government work)

President Trump has issued an executive order titled “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach”. The order directs the U.S. attorney general to identify and block state laws that deal with climate change, environmental justice, and carbon emissions, including the climate superfund laws passed in New York and Vermont that impose stiff fines on big fossil fuel companies. Hosts Aynsley O’Neill and Paloma Beltran report.

Transcript

O’NEILL: From PRX and the Jennifer and Ted Stanley Studios at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, this is Living on Earth. I’m Aynsley O’Neill.

BELTRAN: And I’m Paloma Beltran.

It’s another day, and another executive order for the Trump Administration. On April 8th, the President ordered the U.S. attorney general to find and block state laws that deal with climate change, environmental justice, and carbon emissions, to name a few.

O’NEILL: The order, titled “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach” instructs the Department of Justice to stop the enforcement of state climate laws. It says that quote, “states have enacted or are in the process of enacting “burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.”

BELTRAN: Some of the laws that were explicitly mentioned are the climate superfund laws passed in Vermont and New York. These laws are aimed at holding the fossil fuel industry financially accountable for climate damages, but President Trump’s new executive order calls them extortionary. Meanwhile, California’s cap-and-trade system is said to be “punishing carbon use” by requiring businesses to purchase allowances for their carbon pollution.

O’NEILL: After the announcement, two Democratic governors, Kathy Hochul from New York and Michelle Lujan Grisham from New Mexico, pushed back, saying “The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority.” The two governors chair the U.S. Climate Alliance, a collection of 22 states and two US territories that are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in keeping with the 2015 Paris Agreement.

BELTRAN: On the contrary, the American Petroleum Institute issued a statement in support. It reads, in part “We welcome President Trump's action to hold states like New York and California accountable for pursuing unconstitutional efforts that illegally penalize U.S. oil and natural gas producers for delivering the energy American consumers rely on every day.” These federal actions follow President Trump's promises to promote the coal industry as well as expand oil extraction, all of which contribute to the burning of fossil fuels and climate change.

O’NEILL: The U.S. attorney general has to report on the actions taken against state climate laws and recommend other actions from the president or Congress within 60 days of the executive order. We’ll be covering this story in depth in the coming weeks, but for now, you can find out more at our website, LoE.org.

 

Links

Reuters | “Trump Issues Order to Block State Climate Change Policies”