On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump kicked off his ongoing blitz of signing Executive Orders (EOs) and other directives addressing issues ranging from gender to renaming the Gulf of Mexico. These actions are marked by their colorful, hyper-partisan language and apparently sweeping breadth, in addition to their vagueness, sloppy drafting, and frequent illegality.
In collaboration with our partners at the Climate & Clean Energy Equity Fund, we have created an explainer that briefly describes the EOs most relevant to climate justice advocates, including those related to climate, energy, emergency management, racial equity, and regulations generally. This resource breaks down what the EOs are attempting to do and provides some analysis about likely impacts, and will be updated weekly going forward.
Before examining the breadth of these particular EOs, it is important to remember the limitations inherent to this type of action. In general, EOs cannot undo, override, or modify Congressional enactments or regulations that underwent the notice-and-comment rulemaking processing. Furthermore, executed grant awards are binding legal agreements that are governed by federal regulations. Agencies do not have the legal authority to “pause” the disbursement of obligated funds.
While these EOs attempt to remake the government, they appear to be largely motivated by two primary immediate goals: to infuse the government with ideological messaging from Project 2025 and to cause confusion and fear. The EOs also serve the function of promoting the Administration’s ideologically-motivated messaging; for example, the “Unleashing American Energy” EO contains provisions on “Terminating the Green New Deal” and eliminating the electric vehicle (EV) “mandate,” even though the Green New Deal was never enacted and there is no federal EV mandate.
This onslaught of actions is part of the Trump Administration’s strategy to cause confusion and overwhelm the public. Many of the actions called for in these EOs are likely to have little immediate effect in terms of changing policy; for example, many of the EO provisions direct agency heads or other officials to develop certain kinds of plans or recommendations, which then would require additional steps to execute. These additional steps — such as initiating a rulemaking process or issuing “stop work” orders — may be potential triggers for legal actions to challenge the legality of the EO itself.
Even though these EOs are limited in their power, their immediate impacts are extremely harmful for individuals and households as well as states, local governments, nonprofit organizations, and companies. Funding for critical public health reporting and affordable energy programs has been cut off, while federal staff are being improperly fired and presented with dubious “deferred resignation” offers. Organizations, agencies, and other entities that are recipients or subrecipients of obligated federal funding should consult their own legal counsel about how to respond to EOs or agency directives that claim or appear to be implementing EOs. Our partners at Lawyers for Good Government are offering a pro bono Fund Protection Clinic to provide legal guidance to recipients and subrecipients, and the Democracy 2025 coalition is collecting information on specific threats to federal funding.
