Trump's disastrous first 100 days

As April ends, so do the first 100 days of Donald Trump's second presidency. We who watch from the sidelines will conduct our obligatory analyses of how he and the country are doing. 

The analyses could fill several books, surely. Trump has been very busy following the Project 2025 playbook and Steve Bannon's advice to "flood the zone" with so many initiatives that the nattering nabobs of negativism have no chance to analyze one questionable act before Trump performs a few more. 

Trump has done more in three months than any president in memory to gut government, put civil servants out of work, appoint incompetent people to the highest government positions, create economic turmoil, jeopardize America's alliances, and undermine the rest of the world's confidence in the U.S. While he pretends to liberate America from government interference in their lives, he uses the actual or fabricated powers of the presidency to modify the behaviors of individuals and institutions far beyond his administration. It’s a strategy designed to cow his critics and extort society's institutions and governments into compliance with the rigid ideologies of the far right. 

At some point, Congress and the courts may find the courage to curtail Trump's excesses. In the meantime, Trump is advancing one especially destructive strategy whose damages will be long-lasting, if not permanent. 

Trump is fixated on last century's energy mix of oil, coal and natural gas. The leaders of other nations agree that we must transition to energy resources that don't cause lung disease and climate change. They are available, clean, inexhaustible, indigenous and inexpensive. But during the last three months, Trump has skewed markets to favor dirty energy, suppressed the transition to clean energy, and scuttled government programs that help people deal with the damages he and fossil fuels are causing. 

Trump rationalizes these irrational actions by pretending that climate change is a hoax and fossil fuels can be clean. Neither is true. 

The consequences of denial are all around us. Because fossil fuels still dominate the domestic and global energy mix, 2024 was the warmest year in the planet's recorded history. American communities and families experienced 27 climate-related disasters last year where damages exceeded $1 billion. On average, there have been nine billion-dollar weather disasters annually over the last four decades. Now, the average is 23.  

Climate change is wiping out entire communities with floods, wildfires, sea-level rise and tornadoes spawned by severe thunderstorms. Nearly 880 Americans were killed by extreme weather in 2023, an increase of 20 percent over 2019. Because climate stability is deteriorating and no place in the U.S. is safe from its effects, property damages and deaths will continue to rise.

In the meantime, extreme weather is making home insurance unaffordable, eroding property values, raising consumer prices, straining government budgets and destroying ecosystem services on which we depend. 

In addition, fossil fuels are a significant source of illnesses and deaths from air pollution. Nearly half the U.S. population — some 160 million people — still live where the air contains unhealthy pollution levels. Most are ozone and particulates from fossil-fueled power plants, vehicles and factories. Nearly 25 million more Americans than last year are now at risk of lung diseases and other illnesses from fossil-fuel emissions. 

What is Trump doing about all this? He is dismantling global warming mitigation programs created by past presidents, rescinding regulatory limits on air emissions, and impounding funds and programs designed to deploy clean energy.  

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has announced 31 actions to ease water and air pollution restrictions. The administration plans to cut roughly one-third of the federal health budget. Trump wants to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Administration, which helps homeowners and communities prepare for, respond to and recover from weather disasters. He's gutting federal climate science and the government's ability to predict the weather. 

The U.S. cannot fight climate change alone, but Trump has withdrawn the U.S. for the second time from the international agreement to decarbonize the world economy by 2050. 

Although many states have adopted goals to reduce global warming emissions, Trump has ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to stop them. He directed her to identify all state laws and policies designed to prevent climate change and to remove those the administration considers unconstitutional or contradicted by federal law. 

Rather than recognize our real climate emergency, Trump declared a non-existent energy emergency shortly after taking office to "unleash" fossil fuels and achieve "energy dominance," even though the U.S. already leads the world in oil and gas production. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel. Its contribution to America's energy mix has declined as electric utilities have switched to cleaner natural gas and renewable energy. However, Trump has issued an executive order to "reinvigorate America's beautiful clean coal industry." 

Why do these actions threaten permanent damage? The principal cause of climate change is the carbon dioxide released when fossil fuels are combusted. Carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere today will remain there for hundreds and even thousands of years.

The hope is that the world will someday have scalable and affordable technofixes to remove that gas, but they aren't available today. Others propose exotic geoengineering solutions, but they involve unknown and unintended consequences. Solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower technologies are available now. Their energy is free and clean. We don't have to drill, dig, blast, frac or waste fresh water to reach them. 

Trump is determined to suppress those options so oil, gas and coal companies can profit indefinitely from the misery they cause with catastrophic weather and carcinogenic air. It is an energy policy grounded in greed and unforgivable disregard for the health and safety of the people, whom presidents are elected to serve. 

Trump has set the stage for families to become sicker, poorer and less safe while destroying the public health and disaster response programs that could help them. Add that to the list of his accomplishments in his first 100 days. 

William S. Becker is a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director who administered energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies programs. He also served as special assistant to the department’s assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, a nonpartisan initiative founded in 2007 that works with national thought leaders to develop recommendations for the White House as well as House and Senate committees on climate and energy policies. The project is not affiliated with the White House.