The Lookout

By The Numbers

3rd: According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2025 was the third-hottest year on record. This year is likely to rank among the top four. 

$20 billion: Grant funding the EPA is withholding from already-awarded clean energy programs. The effort to claw back some of these funds continues as a lawsuit wends its way through the courts. 

0: The number of bids the Trump administration received on its first oil lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet. The sale was mandated by Republicans’ sweeping tax bill. The next auction period will be in 2027.

5,426: The number of data centers in the US, according to the Brookings Institution, with thousands more expected to be built in 2026. The nation has more data centers than the next 14 countries combined, including China, based on some reports. 

5: The number of legal cases the Trump administration lost in its attempt to halt offshore wind along the northeastern seaboard. 

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Alerts

Climate Law Endangered

The Environmental Protection Agency has one basic job: to protect the environment. Yet its administrator, Lee Zeldin, is doing everything he can to dismantle rules and regulations that underpin the primary function of this crucial federal agency. Perhaps his most consequential action has been to gut the endangerment finding, a landmark rule that serves as the basis for the government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. 

» Take action: sc.org/endangerment

Monumental Loss

For more than a century, the Antiquities Act has given presidents sweeping powers to create national monuments out of existing federal land. Every president since Teddy Roosevelt has used his executive power to preserve the places that are too precious to lose. These lands protect historical sites and conservation areas, sometimes serving as the precursor to national parks. But Republicans in Congress are trying to undo this authority. 

» Take action: sc.org/protect-monuments

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Victories

Clearing the Air

In 2018, DTE Energy Company, a coal-to-steel plant outside Detroit, released sulfur dioxide pollution that was 1,000 tons over its allotted limit. The Department of Justice sued the company in 2022 for Clean Air Act violations. The Sierra Club intervened in the case to ensure that the community impact of the plant’s pollution would be highlighted. This past February, a court ruled in the agency’s favor, mandating that DTE Energy pay a $100 million penalty and establish a $20 million community fund to pay for residential air purifiers.

Congestion Relief 

Downtown Manhattan is infamous for its gridlock along with its noise and pollution. Last year, New York City unveiled a congestion pricing program to combat all three. Drivers are charged $9 to enter the busiest parts of the city. However, the Trump administration has tried to cancel the plan. In March, a federal court rejected these attempts. “After 14 months of operation, it’s clear that congestion pricing is succeeding: Traffic is moving faster, vehicle pollution is down, and the added revenue is allowing the MTA to make essential improvements to the transit system,” said Wayne Arden, the transportation chair for the Sierra Club New York City Group Chapter. 

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Chapter Corner

A Seat at the Table

Last year, the Sierra Club’s Kentucky Chapter kick-started a campaign to defeat a bill that allows coal companies to dump their pollution into local waterways. The bill passed, over the objections of community groups, but the opposition that the chapter amassed scared lawmakers who sought to let polluters off the hook. Lawmakers then tried to pass a bill to bar such civic engagement, rather than honor the democratic process that affords residents and community organizations the right to speak before the Kentucky Public Service Commission. Chapter organizers put together a rapid-response team to call lawmakers, opposing the bill. Within 24 hours, the chapter had generated nearly 1,000 calls to legislators. Thanks to that advocacy and the partnership with staff from the Kentucky Chapter State Lobby team, the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program, and the Beyond Coal campaign, lawmakers struck the language that would have prevented the Sierra Club from speaking at PSC meetings.

Cutting Energy Costs

In January, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed into law a sweeping affordability package that helps to reduce rising energy costs, support the transition to clean energy, and continue job creation in the renewable sector. The bill, called the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, will go into effect in June 2026. Among its main objectives is building out a robust arsenal of battery storage, accelerating clean energy such as solar and wind, and requiring utility companies to pay customers who use energy-saving tools like solar panels, small batteries, and an energy-efficiency program. “The Sierra Club’s Illinois team, along with our partners in the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, was instrumental in guiding the campaign, navigating difficult negotiating rooms and providing the grassroots and lobbying pressure to lawmakers to take action,” said Christine Nannicelli, the senior campaign representative for the Illinois Chapter.

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Campaign Update

The Roadless Rule was signed into law by President Clinton in 2001, with the idea that certain areas on national forest lands should remain free of roads and off-limits to development. The tens of millions of acres of public land protected by this rule help sequester carbon, serve as habitat for wildlife, provide clean drinking water for cities across the country, and offer a playground for millions of Americans seeking comfort and joy in nature. But Trump appointees have treated the rule as an impediment to development. Conservation groups expect that this administration will try to repeal the Roadless Rule this spring, but unlike the process used to create the rule, which included 1 million comments and 600 public meetings, public meetings are now unlikely. To give the public a place to be heard, the Sierra Club’s conservation team is supporting more than three dozen events across the country to ensure people who live in local communities have a voice in the process.

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Trump Watch

A year into his second term, President Trump and the current Congress are cementing into place a legacy of public lands destruction—especially in Alaska. Starting last winter, the president revoked Biden-era plans for protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which sought to limit industrial activity in the refuge after Congress mandated oil and gas leasing in the area in 2017. Now that the plans have been rescinded, the Trump administration is opening 1.5 million acres of sensitive tundra habitat to oil and gas. The president also signed into law a resolution to revoke the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan, which guides priorities across more than 13 million acres in Alaska. Within that area, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently announced that he is repealing public land orders to enable the transfer of national lands to the state of Alaska, allowing for mining and other development such as a 211-mile road that would also cleave through the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. And Burgum announced plans to open more than 18 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve to oil and gas leasing. Burgum recently said that he’d like to expand mining on more than 2 million acres of public land along the Dalton Highway. In total, the Trump administration wants to open an area roughly the size of Illinois to oil, gas, and mineral extraction—all within one of the wildest states in the nation.

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