Trump Administration
The 2026 Election: Six Months to Go
Here’s what things look like now, but a lot could change.
Six months is a long time in politics, especially in the Trump era. What we can say at this point is that, compared with last November, the landscape has shifted toward the Democrats. They would now be favored to win the House, although that’s not a certainty. Republicans still clearly have edge in winning the Senate, but it’s a smaller edge than it was six months ago. Control of the House would allow Democrats to block further anti-environmental legislation, open investigations into Trump’s rollbacks, and potentially bargain for some pro-environmental provisions. Control of the Senate, while less likely, would also allow them to block appointments of extremist anti-environmentalist judges and officials.
CONTINUE READINGRoundup at the Supreme Court
Bayer and its allies in the Trump Administration got their day in court.
Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Monsanto v. Durnell. As discussed in a previous blog post, the broader context of the case is significant even though the question before the Court was a narrow one: “Whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts a label-based failure-to-warn claim where EPA has not required the …
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CONTINUE READINGBending Under Pressure
Every now and then, the Trump Administration shows signs of reluctantly giving in to reality.
The Trump Administration’s basic stance has been to pursue ideological purity all costs, beginning with the “shock and awe” campaign of the first year. Don’t expect miracles, but there are at least a few signs that the Administration is tempering that strategy. It’s a bit comforting to see indications that reality is slowly sinking in. It’s also evidence that resistance to Trump policies isn’t futile.
Any trend toward saner policies is likely to be very limited. For instance, Trump and his supporters are too invested in climate denial to ever admit that climate change is a serious problem. The best we might hope for is that they ease up just a little on their war against clean energy. There are at least some hints that this may be starting to happen.
CONTINUE READINGUnderstanding the Energy Dominance Agenda
What does this key concept in Trump’s energy policy actually mean?
The term “energy dominance” is at the core of the Trump Administration’s energy and environmental policies. But hat does it mean? Trump fleshed out the concept of energy dominance when he proclaimed October to be “National Energy Dominance Month.” (He forgot to issue the proclamation until halfway through the month, meaning it got even less attention than it might have otherwise received. Still, it unpacks some of his thinking in a useful way. Below, I’ll try to tease out answers to some of the key questions.
CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Slump
The Trump regime is losing ground, creating new policy opportunities.
Trump’s term began with brutal attacks on environment and clean energy policies, but he now longer looks unstoppable. Dems are likely to make major gains in the mid-terms, consumers are deeply unhappy, and his Iran War drags on. These setbacks create openings to push back against his “energy dominance” agenda. Outside the U.S., his effort to expand fossil fuel use is failing. Domestically, there are now openings to blunt his attacks on clean tech and prepare the ground for new policies when he leaves office.
CONTINUE READINGThe Future of the Colorado
There’s not enough water to go around, but there’s no agreement about what to do.
The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people and about 5.5 million acres of irrigated farmland. There’s only so much water to go around, so how to divide up the water has been hotly disputed for over a century. The previous agreement has come unstuck, but finding a replacement has proved devilishly difficult. I suspect that the Feds would rather avoid this political hot-potato through a state agreement. So far, however, state negotiations haven’t been successful. Maybe the impending threat of a federal mandate will light a fire under the negotiations. Otherwise, we are probably guaranteed years of litigation while the river runs dry.
CONTINUE READINGHow, Exactly, Has Trump Gone After EVs?
A close look at the Administration’s wreckage, in six steps
The second Trump Administration has brought a flood of obstacles to the national effort to transition away from petroleum-powered vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs). These challenges have come in many forms across multiple levels of government; they are in most cases completely unprecedented, and in many cases legally dubious (to put it mildly). The push …
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CONTINUE READINGNever Give Up! Every Ton of Carbon We Can Cut Still Matters
It’s easy to be disheartened when we miss climate targets. But climate change isn’t a yes/no thing. It’s a matter of degree.
It’s easy to lose heart about our prospects for limiting climate change. The US has pulled out of international climate negotiations. Most of the countries that joined the Paris Agreement have missed targets , targets that weren’t aggressive enough in the first place. The 1.5 °C target is already basically out of reach. Is time to give up on slowing climate change and focus on adapting to it? The answer is no. Here’s why.
Climate change is a matter of degrees. That sounds like a truism or a pun, but it’s true in a deeper sense. There is no point past which further warming becomes irrelevant. degree, and every fraction of a degree makes things that much worse.
Judicial Review of the Hegseth Gambit
Hegseth and the “God Squad” may have just stepped into a morass.
As expected, the Endangered Species Committee issued a blanket exemption, preventing any challenges to oil and gas drilling in the Gulf that threaten endangered species. Hegseth’s request for the exemption is premised on the existing (but possibly insufficient) protections that the government is currently giving endangered species. Thus, it’s not quite a license for Exxon to send out harpoon boats to kill off whales. It does, however, raise the suspicion that the current protections are grossly inadequate and that the government expected to lose in court, before in effect breaking the glass and pulling the red emergency lever.
CONTINUE READINGThe War and the Energy Transition
The Iran War it is hitting energy markets hard. Will that affect the energy transition?
The Iran War has been a big shock to the global energy system. It’s natural to wonder what the long terms will be. What it will lead to an orgy of oil and gas drilling, or will it speed up the energy transition? There are enormous uncertainties, and making confident predictions would be a clear mistake. In this post, I’ll try to unpack some of the issues and offer a semi-educated gas about the answers.
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