Sierra Club image.
Welcome back to ESCN’s March Badness tournament, where we’re watching Donald Trump’s 64 worst environmental actions duke it out to see who will be crowned the worst of the worst.
Our tournament is underway, the votes are in, and boy are there some stinkers in here. Top seeded contenders like the DOGE bros and Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement sailed into the round of 32, but we also saw a few upsets. Censoring History at National Parks and Delaying the Methane Rule broke many a bracket – and maybe even a few laws. That’s what makes March Badness memories.
But who else will make a statement in this next round? Will Illegally Extending the Lives of Coal Plants build on its upset win over Trump’s Fake National Energy Emergency? Will repealing the Endangerment Finding walk to an appearance in the Filthy Four? Will Trump do something even worse while this tournament is going on? Voting is open now for the Scandalous Sixteen – who will make the cut?
One thing is certain: We can’t stop any of these actions without people power, and that starts with you. Click the links below to learn more about Trump’s attacks on our environment, clean energy, communities, and more, and take action to secure a healthy planet for the next generation!
Rollbacks Regional
- (WINS) Repealing the Endangerment finding. Take action, tell Congress: Make the EPA do its job to protect our environment!
- Repealing the Greenhouse Gas vehicle standards
- (WINS) Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement
- Gutting the Waters of the United States Rule, eliminating protections for 80 million acres of wetlands and 5 million miles of streams. Take action, tell Congress: Restore Critical Water Protections!
- (WINS) Revoking the Roadless Rule, opening up nearly 60 million acres of national forests to logging
- Rewriting the Endangered Species Act to weaken protections for critical habitat. Take action, Protect the Endangered Species Act!
- (WINS) Revoking protections for offshore waters and coastlines to enable more offshore drilling
- Repealing Fuel Economy Standards that would have saved American families billions in fuel costs
- Withdrawing from the Columbia Basin Agreement and threatening the Pacific Northwest’s iconic salmon populations
- (WINS) Dismantling the EPA’s environmental justice office and initiatives
- Rewriting the Clean Water Act to take away state and Tribal power to protect drinking water and important streams and wetlands from pollution. Take action, tell Congress: Restore Critical Water Protections!
- (WINS) Revoking the Public Lands Rule to prioritize corporate drilling, mining, and logging on public lands. Take action, Protect Public Lands from Corporate Polluters and Billionaires!
- Attacking Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Take action, tell Congress: Protect the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument!
- (WINS) Revoking decades-old protections for 2 million acres of northern Alaska to benefit the oil and gas industry
- (WINS) Cutting funding for climate research and censoring information on government websites. Take action, Save Disaster Relief & Weather Services!
- Ending protections for migratory birds
Executive (Dis)orders
- (WINS) Empowering Elon Musk and DOGE to fire thousands of federal workers and throw the federal government into chaos
- Illegally opening Alligator Alcatraz near Big Cypress National Park, destroying critical habitat to detain ICE prisoners. Take action, tell Congress: Hold the Administration Accountable to Protect People, Democracy, and Public Lands!
- Slashing budgets and workforces at land management agencies, harming national parks and public lands
- (WINS) Censoring history at national park sites, whitewashing the story of our country and the people who call its landscapes home. Take action, Congress must stop the erasure of our history!
- (WINS) Militarizing public lands to stage ICE raids in Los Angeles
- Bulldozing Big Bend National Park lands to build a border wall. Take action, tell Congress: Hold the Administration Accountable to Protect People, Democracy, and Public Lands!
- Conditioning disaster aid to L.A. communities destroyed by fire
- (WINS) Slow-walking disaster recovery aid for victims of Hurricane Helene
- (WINS) Abusing an obscure law to cut out public input and overturn public lands protections. Take action, Congress: Protect the Boundary Waters Wilderness from Toxic Mining!
- Revoking Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth as national park fee-free holidays, but adding Trump’s birthday as a fee-free holiday
- Nominating tech billionaire Doug Burgum as Interior Secretary
- (WINS) Nominating another tech billionaire to run an agency he filed lawsuits against
- Nominating someone who supports selling public lands to run the Bureau of Land Management. Take action, say no to Sell-Off Steve!
- (WINS) Firing wildfire firefighters before fire season and downsizing federal wildfire management to a single office
- Renaming Denali and the Gulf without public input
- (WINS) Doubling down on failed wildfire strategies like suppression and logging. Take action, Tell the Senate: Stand Up For Our Forests!
Energy Vampires
- Declaring a fake national energy emergency to benefit corporations and billionaires. Take action, How We Can Make Polluters Pay!
- (WINS) Illegally extending the operational lives of coal plants
- (WINS) Blocking funding for IRA programs that support clean energy and clean manufacturing
- Gutting IRA programs that lower energy bills for all Americans
- (WINS) Freezing funds for the national network of EV charging stations
- Trying to abolish the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that helps working-class people heat their homes
- (WINS) Exempting coal plants from toxic mercury pollution standards
- Forcing school kids to breathe the diesel fumes of outdated buses on their way to school
- Reversing a national pause on LNG export approvals. Take action, How We Can Make Polluters Pay!
- (WINS) Illegally cancelling offshore wind leases and putting the industry and thousands of jobs at risk
- Directing the Department of Defense to purchase electricity from coal power plants
- (WINS) Excluding solar and wind from the definition of energy under its phony energy emergency
- (WINS) Reinstating illegal oil and gas leases in the Arctic Refuge
- Trying to terminate New York City’s Congestion Pricing Program
- (WINS) Cozying up with Big Oil CEOs. Take action, How We Can Make Polluters Pay!
- Supporting the SPEED Act, which fails to lower energy costs or speed clean energy deployment
Corporate Giveaways
- Passing the Big Beautiful Bill and its handouts to billionaires and corporate polluters
- (WINS) Pushing to privatize millions of acres of public lands, locking out the public from the great outdoors
- Reopening the Western Arctic to oil and gas drilling. Take action, Keep Polluters’ Hands Off Public Lands in Alaska!
- (WINS) Offering concierge white glove service for fossil fuel companies. Take action, Urge Public Pensions: Invest in a Clean Energy Future!
- (WINS) Removing the public from public lands management by cutting NEPA requirements at the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management
- Illegally revoking state authority for clean car and truck standards
- (WINS) Forcing taxpayers to clean up oil and gas messes corporations leave behind
- Advancing the construction of Ambler industrial Road on the doorstep of Gates of the Arctic National Park. Take action, Demand that Congress Oppose Trump's Destructive Ambler Road!
- Mandating dozens of new oil and gas lease sales across millions of acres of public lands and waters under Big Beautiful Bill
- (WINS) Trying to open Boundary Waters, one of the most popular recreation areas in the country, to toxic sulfide mining. Take action, Congress: Protect the Boundary Waters Wilderness from Toxic Mining!
- Establishing an EPA exemptions inbox where polluters can send an email and be allowed to violate the Clean Air Act and spew deadly pollutants. Take action, Tell Congress: Make the EPA do its job to protect our environment!
- (WINS) Increasing corporate logging quotas on millions of acres of national forests
- (WINS) Extending offshore drilling off the coasts of seven states
- EPA no longer considering lives saved when evaluating impact of limits on air pollution
- Supporting the phony Fix Our Forests Act. Take action, tell the Senate: Stand Up For Our Forests!
- (WINS) Delaying protections against methane and other harmful pollution