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Not that long ago, conservatives demanded that the government balance costs and benefits. They still do, but with a twist: They demand special limits on consideration of environmental effects. But that makes no sense. Whatever rules we have about costs should apply to all types of costs, and the same with benefits. The result of skewing the analysis is, not surprisingly, that we get conservative results more often.

If a tree falls in the forest but no one hears it, does it still make a sound? If a law hasn’t been formally repealed but can be violated with complete impunity, is it still in effect? I’ll leave the first question to philosophers, but the second one could have major legal implications. Here’s why.

President Donald Trump is on a rampage. He has big plans for a mass repeal of existing regulations, he’s trying to use emergency declarations to short-circuit normal environmental protections, and he’s savaging environmental agencies. He’s also at war with the rule of law, dodging court orders, ignoring statutes, and punishing lawyers and law firms that have dared to challenge him. In area after area, Trump has tried to sweep aside legal constraints. Part of the point of Trump’s “shock and awe” campaign has been to overwhelm the ability of opponents and the courts to keep up with his legally questionable actions. Trump’s attack on the bureaucracy is also an attack on the rule of law because one of the key functions of bureaucrats is to ensure that the government follows the rules.

In one of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders, he eliminated a centralized system that Jimmy Carter initially set up to issue regulations governing environmental impact statements. Instead, he called on each agency to issue its own regulations, which seems to have caused the predictable amount of confusion. I’ve examined the new regulations from three agencies: the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Department of Transportation (DOT), which happened to be the first ones that I saw. There seems to be little rhyme or reason in the variations.

President Donald Trump has taken some dramatic steps in the name of improving use of NEPA, the statute governing environmental reviews of projects. The goal is to speed up the permitting process and make it more efficient. The reality is that his efforts will create chaos and uncertainty, with the likely effect of slowing things down.

It’s a tribute to the significance of state climate policies that President Donald Trump devoted an entire executive order to excoriating them as “fundamentally irreconcilable” with his own, fossil fuel-promoting energy policy. Yet, despite all the drama in DC, state governments have continued to make quiet progress in their efforts to expand clean energy and phase out fossil fuels. These states are focused on tangible steps forward, not on capturing online clicks, so their efforts may escape notice. But the cumulative effect of these month-by-month, smaller-scale initiatives is significant.

On April 8, flanked by a few coal miners in hard hats, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders to restore their industry to its past glory. Given that coal is now the most expensive way to generate power other than nuclear, that’s going to be a heavy lift. Like many of Trump’s orders, these four are full of threats and bluster but will have little immediate effect.

While President Trump finds “tariff” one of the most beautiful words in the English language, I myself prefer “anti-backsliding.” Back in January, Trump told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to roll back efficiency standards on everything from light bulbs to shower heads. Some news outlets viewed this as an accomplished task, with headlines like “Trump Rolls Back Energy Standard.” But, as it turned out, not only was it not a done deal, it was also legally impossible. The reason: an anti-backsliding provision.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) efforts to regulate carbon emissions from power plants have had a tortuous history, and we’re about to go through another round, with a rule from a Democratic administration being repealed and replaced by a Trump rule. The last time this happened, the Trump EPA said that its interpretation of the statute required an extraordinarily narrow substitute rule. Because of intervening legal changes, it won’t find it as easy to make that argument this time. In the end, the Trump substitute rule will undoubtedly be weak but not as weak as last time.