On Climate, Governors Enter ‘Trench Warfare Mode’

With the U.S. federal government once again abandoning all efforts to confront the climate crisis, any domestic advances in reducing emissions and accelerating clean energy in the near future will have to come from the state and local levels. And while some states continue to make strides on this front, they do so in the face of a Trump administration that is blocking federal climate-related funding and threatening to go after states for their efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and hold fossil fuel companies accountable.

On April 8, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order that seemingly put all state and local climate policies in the crosshairs. Titled “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach,” the order directs the U.S. attorney general to identify all state laws, policies, regulations and actions that burden fossil fuel development or otherwise address climate change; greenhouse gas emissions; environmental, social and governance initiatives; or environmental justice, and to “expeditiously take all appropriate action” to stop them. Although the order identifies a number of state programs — California’s cap-and-trade program, “polluter pays” climate superfund laws passed by Vermont and New York — the language is broad enough to implicate virtually any state climate or environmental policies that might hinder the administration’s “energy dominance” agenda. 

Now, the attorney general has started to implement Trump’s command by taking legal action directly against states. On May 1, the Department of Justice announced it had filed lawsuits against Hawaii, Michigan, New York and Vermont over their efforts to hold fossil fuel polluters liable for climate damages. The lawsuits against Hawaii and Michigan were preemptive strikes, as these states had not yet sued any energy companies at the time of the Trump administration’s filings. Hawaii, however, did announce a climate deception lawsuit against major oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute later Thursday. In its announcement, Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez condemned the Trump administration’s “illegal attempt to interfere” with its lawsuit. “The state of Hawaiʻi will not be deterred from moving forward with our climate deception lawsuit,” Lopez said. “My department will vigorously oppose this gross federal overreach.”

Other state and local leaders have similarly rebuked Trump’s directive as an unlawful attack on their sovereignty and have said they will not back down from their efforts to advance climate action.

“The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, co-chairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance and both Democrats, said in a statement. “We are a nation of states — and laws — and we will not be deterred. We will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis that safeguard Americans’ fundamental right to clean air and water, create good-paying jobs, grow the clean energy economy, and make our future healthier and safer.” 

The Climate Alliance, which launched during Trump’s first term, is a coalition of U.S. states and territories committed to pursuing climate leadership. Several governors whose states belong to this coalition have referenced their commitments to continue making progress during their annual addresses. “Colorado will continue to lead the way to tackle climate change and pollution, with or without federal help,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, D, said in his state of the state remarks in January. 

At the local level, commissioners in Boulder County, Colorado, a jurisdiction that filed suit in 2018 against oil companies ExxonMobil and Suncor seeking to recover damage costs associated with climate impacts, issued a statement pushing back against Trump’s executive order. “We stand firm in our belief that the State of Colorado and Boulder County are within our legal rights to take action locally to address climate change and that the federal government does not have the authority through Executive Orders to block state laws and lawsuits,” the county officials said. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, also spoke out against Trump’s directive, calling it a “glorified press release masquerading as an executive order.” Newsom added that “California’s efforts to cut harmful pollution won’t be derailed.” Just a week after Trump signed the order, the governor and leaders in the state legislature announced they plan to “double down” on California’s cap-and-trade program, which is set to expire in 2030 absent legislative action to extend it. 

State officials in Vermont have likewise struck a defiant tone in the face of Trump’s threats to their climate initiatives, including a first-of-its-kind law that requires big fossil fuel polluters to help pay for some of the costs of responding and adapting to damaging climate impacts. During a recent Earth Day press conference at the Vermont Statehouse, Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark slammed Trump’s executive order as “yet another attempt to undermine state sovereignty.” She vowed to continue working to protect and defend Vermont’s actions to address the climate crisis. 

“Vermont is not going to back down or be intimidated by threats like Trump’s recent executive order,” Vermont state Sen. Anne Watson, a Democrat who was a lead sponsor of the state’s Climate Superfund Act, said in an emailed statement. “We have an obligation to protect our constituents, and that’s what we will continue to do.”  

Blue states like Vermont have also seen halting moves by local Republicans to undermine climate and clean energy goals. 

During a March 7 webinar discussing federal and state attacks on climate action, Watson pointed to proposed legislation backed by Republican Gov. Phil Scott and state Republican lawmakers that would amount to “mostly rollbacks.” Climate advocates say this bill would gut the state’s signature climate law and make other ill-advised changes to the state’s renewable energy policy and energy efficiency fund. Now, with just a few weeks left in the state’s legislative session, that bill and other attempted rollbacks do not appear to be moving forward. “Republicans here in Vermont don’t necessarily want to be associated with that wholesale attack on the environment,” Vermont Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D, said during the Earth Day press conference. 

Still, Vermont climate advocates say they are not letting their guard down. “We’re trying to be vigilant,” said Lauren Hierl, executive director of the Vermont Natural Resource Council. In addition to any late-session attempted rollbacks from state lawmakers, she said advocates are “watching closely for what federal actions might make it harder for us to even implement the laws that we have on the books.” Ending clean energy incentives and blocking climate-related Inflation Reduction Act funding, for example, threatens to stymie state progress in reducing emissions and moving away from fossil fuels. 

“When we’re trying to meet our state climate law’s pollution reduction targets, it becomes a lot more difficult when you’ve got a federal administration making it harder to build the infrastructure or making it more expensive for families to transition to heat pumps or electric vehicles,” Hierl said. “That’s a big concern right now.” 

Justin Balik, who focuses on state climate policy at the national climate advocacy group Evergreen Action, said that IRA funding is important for helping states accelerate the clean energy transition and drive down costs. “States are confronting real concerns about affordability,” he explained. But even in the absence of federal support, he said there are signs that states are trying to move forward, though progress may be slower than advocates would like to see.  

“It’s kind of like a trench warfare mode for state climate policy,” Balik said. “We are in knife fights in sector-by-sector and issue-by-issue and statute-by-statute to make sure we are defending the progress we’ve already made and then making new progress wherever we can against the federal headwinds.” 

In New York, Hochul is reportedly facing pressure from Trump to revive a major fracked gas pipeline, and her administration already approved another gas pipeline expansion project in February. The approval could hamper the state’s efforts to achieve its climate goals, enshrined into law under the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). New York is falling behind on its targets under that statute, including an ambition to achieve 70% renewable electricity by 2030. 

Several environmental groups are now suing the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to compel it to issue regulations implementing the state’s landmark climate law. “In general, the Hochul administration has been slow-walking implementation of the CLCPA,” Food and Water Watch’s Alex Beauchamp, who is not involved in the lawsuit, explained. He said the administration led advocates to believe a cap-and-invest program to reduce carbon pollution in line with statutory targets would be rolled out, but then announced at the beginning of this year that it would be delayed. 

“Six years after passing groundbreaking, nation-leading climate legislation, our leaders continue to drag their feet, leaving us dangerously behind where we need to be,” said Dawn Wells-Clyburn, executive director of PUSH Buffalo, one of the groups suing the state. 

Some environmental activists in Maryland are similarly concerned that their state leaders are not acting boldly enough to meet their climate and clean energy ambitions. “For years, [Democratic Gov. Wes] Moore has spoken of his commitment to clean energy goals, but his administration has done little to match his climate rhetoric,” said Jorge Aguilar, southern regional director with Food and Water Watch. 

Aguilar’s hope coming into the start of this year’s legislative session that state lawmakers would advance progress toward the 100 clean electricity goal was soon dashed, he explained. “The leadership in Maryland really took a turn toward supporting what we consider to be dirty power plants.” 

Maryland lawmakers passed an energy bill that Aguilar said opens the door to potentially fast-tracking new methane gas and nuclear power plants in the state. He argued that while nuclear energy does not emit carbon pollution, it does have other safety and contamination concerns. 

The energy bill, called the Next Generation Energy Act, is expected to be signed into law by Moore. Aguilar said its passage reflects lawmakers’ “failure to address some of the state’s most pressing energy and climate concerns.”

“State leaders are fully walking back promises of enacting a 100% clean energy program,” he said. 

Maryland Sierra Club chapter director Josh Tulkin also expressed concern about the bill’s support for new gas-powered generation, calling it a “mistake that takes us in the wrong direction.”  

Brittany Baker, Maryland director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network Action Fund, took a more positive view of the legislation, saying the final bill was significantly improved over the initial version. “But we will still have to be vigilant,” she said, noting that language around new gas generation remained in the bill. 

Maryland lawmakers also recently passed a version of climate superfund legislation that commits the state first to doing a comprehensive study assessing its climate-related costs. Once a dollar figure is determined, lawmakers will need to pass another bill to assign payment responsibility to fossil fuel polluters. “We’re the third state to take legislative action on climate superfund,” Baker said. “That’s another exciting development that shows Maryland’s continuing commitment to climate action.” 

“I think across the board there are places where governors and legislators and states are stepping up,” Balik said. “Whether it’s the California clean transportation waivers, or state cap-and-invest programs, or state clean electricity standards, all of those tools in the toolbox are critical for driving forward progress, and we’re seeing states and others step up to defend the authority to move forward with these initiatives.”