Biden makes early gains eroding Trump’s environmental legacy

The Biden administration is making a dent in reversing Trump-era environmental policies but still has a long way to go in its effort to undo four years of regulatory rollbacks.

Thus far, the administration has reversed 42 actions and targeted 73, with no steps taken on another 122, according to a tracker from The Washington Post. 

But the process for undoing some of the federal rules is lengthy, meaning it could be years before the Biden administration can undo some of former President TrumpDonald TrumpUkraine’s president compares UN to ‘a retired superhero’ Collins to endorse LePage in Maine governor comeback bid Heller won’t say if Biden won election MORE’s environmental actions, many of which focused on deregulation.

“The rulemaking process takes time,” said Stan Meiburg, who was an acting deputy administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the Obama administration.

“Things like the … particulate matter standards, you’d have to really work hard to do a rulemaking on that,” he said, referring to an air pollution standard that the Trump administration declined to tighten.

Some of the Biden administration’s moves came as early as the president’s first day in office, like revoking a key permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and seeking to return the U.S. to the Paris climate agreement. The administration also published a list on Jan. 20 of dozens of Trump actions to review.

Since then, Biden has put forward proposals to take on some of the Trump administration’s major climate rollbacks, particularly in the transportation sector, where regulations have significant implications for climate change given that the industry is the largest source of the United States’s planet-warming emissions.

Biden officials have proposed increasing federal standards for both tailpipe emissions and vehicle mileage, which the Trump administration had gutted. But those efforts involve a two-step process: proposing near-term standards that are significantly tighter than those put forward by the Trump administration and eyeing longer-term standards.

The administration has also proposed restoring California’s ability to set its own, stricter emissions standards after they were revoked by the Trump administration.

Another Trump-era rule targeted for dismantling is one on water pollution. The Biden administration first announced that it will pursue a “foundational rule” that would restore the pre-Obama protections and is expected to later put forward a longer-term regulation.

Former President ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaTo Build Back Better, improving Black women’s health is a must Rahm Emanuel has earned M since leaving Chicago’s city hall: report 60 years after the Peace Corps, service still brings Americans together MORE expanded protections with the Waters of the U.S. rule in 2015, but the Trump administration took steps to roll back those protections, as well as others that had been in place for decades.

Meiburg said some of the…