Christopher Schuler, christopher.schuler@sierraclub.org
Washington, DC – Today, the Sierra Club responded to Donald Trump’s sweeping “Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting” executive order which seeks to retire key safeguards and would hollow out nearly all environmental protections on the books.
The order directs key environment and energy agencies to incorporate so-called “sunset provisions” into critical guardrails to effectively phase them out. The provisions named have protected the health and wellbeing of Americans, wildlife, and the environment for decades.
The executive order applies to ten federal agencies, and directly threatens to render at least 26 laws protecting the environment and consumers unenforceable. These include key conservation laws to protect endangered species, laws to protect residents from the side effects of coal mining, and laws that require proper disposal of nuclear waste, amongst others. The order does not specify the bedrock pollution laws enforced by the EPA, but instead directs the agency to provide its own list of laws to gut within 30 days.
Trump’s order also directs agencies to coordinate with agency leads from Elon Musk’s DOGE team to implement the unraveling of these protections.
In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous released the following statement:
“Donald Trump wants to take us back to the days when our rivers caught on fire and lead poisoned our drinking water. With the stroke of a pen, he is illegally trying to erase more than 50 years of basic safeguards that protect our drinking water, the air we breathe, and secure our communities from the threats of nuclear waste and oil spills. Donald Trump does not care about the health of our people, our families, or our planet. This executive order is a reckless attempt to undermine our rule of law, our health, and our safety in the name of yet another giveaway to corporate polluters and billionaires.”
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About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.