As preparation for President-elect Donald Trump’s second term begins, Indiana environmental activists and leaders are looking to the past for signs of what’s to come.
“There is certainly cause for concern amongst the environmental community for what a Trump presidency will mean,” said Kim Farrago, managing attorney at the Conservation Law Center in Bloomington. “That would be based not only on what he said during his campaign but what he did during the first Trump presidency.”
Leaders have several concerns, including rollbacks of environmental protections, effects on the Environmental Protection Agency and reduced regulations.
Under a second Trump presidency, there will likely be broad measures against environmental regulations because he “hates government regulations,” said Spencer Cortwright, associate professor of biology at Indiana University Northwest. For example, Cortwright said he foresees Trump undoing regulations that protect federal lands because they prohibit real estate development.
“He’ll want to get rid of as many regulations as he can, and environmental ones he generally sees as hindering business,” Cortwright said. “Which exact, specific ones, I am not aware of what he’s thinking of getting rid of, but he just likes to get rid of regulations, so I worry about that.”
Appointing Elon Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency alongside former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy can show what’s to come, Farrago said. Reading between the lines, she added, it seems that the pair will slash agency funding, including that for the EPA.
Trump alone couldn’t impact the EPA’s funding and Congress would have to approve, but Farrago worries that the next president could cut the agency’s staffers.
The president-elect on Monday named former New York congressman Lee Zeldin to lead the EPA. Zeldin left Congress in January 2023.
In a statement, Trump said Zeldin will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses,” according to the Associated Press. Zeldin also will maintain “the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.”
Zeldin is a “Trump loyalist,” said James Pew, director of federal clean air practice at EarthJustice, a San Francisco-based nonprofit public interest environmental law organization. Zeldin has a 14% rating with the League of Conservation Voters, Pew added.
“He doesn’t really have much of a track record at all on the environment, other than voting against it whenever he had the opportunity,” Pew said.
Appointing a politician rather than someone familiar with environmental regulation sets the tone for the future of the EPA, he added.
Susan Thomas, legislative and policy director for Just Transition Northwest Indiana, called Zeldin “a brutal choice to head the EPA,” especially because of his views on climate change.
“He’s a climate change denier with little to no regulatory experience,” Thomas said, “and he’s already being hailed as the ‘Great Deregulator,’ promising some swift action. This does not bode well.”
Ellen Szarleta, professor of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Northwest, said that based on Trump’s first term and campaigning, it’s likely the president-elect will move toward energy production and away from environmental protection.
In his previous term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, which resulted in the rollback of numerous environmental regulations, Szarleta said. The previous Trump administration stated it believed the regulations were ineffective and a rollback allowed businesses to move forward with various plans without regulations, she said.
But Zeldin has supported pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, arguing that it doesn’t give incentive for other countries to hold up their end of the agreement, she said.
If Trump were to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement again, Szarleta said, the ripple effect isn’t clear but concerning.
“The policy concern is that if the United States pulls back, then other countries would pull back, and then we don’t know what that would mean exactly, especially with respect to carbon dioxide emissions,” Szarleta said. “We have to think about ourselves not just here in the United States but how the United States will influence what happens in the rest of the world.”
In his first term, Trump tried to eliminate the Great Lakes Initiative, a federal funding source to help improve the areas within and around the Great Lakes, Cortwright said. But Republicans in Congress at the time stopped him from doing that, he said. Cortwright said he’s worried that Trump will try to eliminate that funding again but he’s hopeful that Republicans in Congress would block the action a second time.
Trump has talked a lot about drilling for oil to reduce costs, Cortwright said, which has a short-term positive effect for consumers but long-term negative consequences. Oil is in limited supply, Cortwright said, so the faster it is drilled out the faster it will run out.
Any actions to drill oil faster will cause the U.S. to either run out of oil completely or have a very low supply that will force the country to be more dependent on the Middle East or Russia for oil, Cortwright said.
“It’s not going to last forever, so what I worry most about is that our country still is heavily dependent on oil,” Cortwright said. “We want cheap gas again, that’s what everybody seems to want and that’s what Trump seems to want.”
When considering climate change initiatives, like focusing on solar and wind power, Cortwright said he’s worried that Trump would aim to reverse them.
But Cortwright and Szarleta said many environmental laws are established at the state level, so states could take stricter action compared to any possible new Trump Administration laws that roll back environmental protection. Additionally, U.S. businesses will likely make environmental policies and procedures to stay competitive in the global market, Szarleta said.
It’s important that local and state agencies uphold regulations that will protect the environment, Thomas said.
The Environmental Protection Agency has installed signs in the West Calumet Housing Development in East Chicago warning people to not play in the dirt or mulch due to elevated levels of lead in the ground in the file photo. The housing development has since been razed.
Just Transition Northwest Indiana and other environmental organizations have spoken out against a deal between U.S. Steel and Japanese company Nippon Steel, which would include allocating $300 million to reline a blast furnace at the Gary Works facility.
Gard Advocates for Responsible Development and Just Transition in October supported a letter from the Sierra Club, a national grassroots organization. The letter to U.S. Congress members opposes the potential deal.
“Nippon Steel’s revealed plans to extend the life of the most polluting parts of a steel mill currently operated by U.S. Steel leaves no doubt that the company is not acting on climate or accounting for public health,” the letter said.
Carolyn McCrady, GARD member, said the organization doesn’t oppose the deal but the blast furnace relining. The blast furnace technology will be obsolete in about 15 or 20 years, McCrady said, and GARD members would prefer a direct reduction furnace at the facility.
Trump said earlier this year that he would stop the acquisition, according to the Associated Press. Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris opposed the deal as well.
“I would block it,” Trump said after meeting with the Teamsters union. “I think it’s a horrible thing, when Japan buys U.S. Steel. I would block it instantaneously.”
Thomas said Just Transition will continue to watch the deal and that she’s not confident he will block the acquisition.
Both McCrady and Thomas are worried about how deregulation will impact Northwest Indiana compared to the rest of the country. McCrady is worried that the Clean Air Act, which regulates all sources of air emissions, will be targeted.
“That’s where it all begins, with the emissions,” McCrady said. “They want to degrade those regulations to the point where steel companies, who are still using blast furnaces and creating extra pollution, will be able to just do so without any guardrails.”
Indiana struggles with environmental policy and prioritizing the environment, which leads to more coal ash pits that are in contact with the state’s groundwater, said Sam Carpenter, executive director of the Hoosier Environmental Council. The Hoosier state also relies on coal-fired generation, which Carpenter said is both the dirtiest and most expensive form of power.
Indiana benefits from EPA regulations on carbon emissions, Carpenter added.
“President-elect Trump hasn’t stated those things as a priority,” he said. “Instead, he’s kind of pushed back against those types of things, so there’s a concern that we’re going to lose that progress.”
Carpenter recommends people get involved with local and state organizations if they feel overwhelmed about Trump’s potential environmental impact.
“The Hoosier Environmental Council is certainly a resource for that,” he said. “I think it’s harder to watch from the sidelines and feel like there’s nothing we can do than it is to get involved and see progress as it happens.”
Farrago believes the fight for environmental change has always been hard and addressing environmental injustices is an uphill battle. However, she said now is the time to step up to the challenge.
McCrady and Thomas both recommend interested Northwest Indiana residents get involved with local organizations and make their voices heard by local politicians and leaders.
“Get together with a like-minded community right now because this is especially important,” Thomas said. “Isolation only furthers despair, and we cannot afford that right now. We must be united in our community and help other people out.”
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