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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had a tortuous history, and we’re about to go through another round, with a rule from a Democratic administration being repealed and replaced by a Trump rule.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.

If you were looking for data-driven regulatory policy, you’re not going to find it in this administration. On the contrary, President Trump has marginalized economic analysis and wants to bulldoze environmental science. Thus, we are likely to get policies that are bad for the environment without being cost-justified while ignoring policies whose environmental benefits outweigh economic costs.

In recent days, President Donald Trump has said that he won’t provide relief for the Los Angeles fires unless California changes its voting laws and its water regulations. He also suggested that he’d like to abolish FEMA entirely. The first of Trump’s proposals is likely unconstitutional. The second one is both a terrible idea and beyond his legal authority.

A sleeper provision in one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders attempts to revolutionize the way the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) operates and cut environmental review to a minimum.

President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for office provide a strong hint of what the next year will look like. In Trump’s first term, government actions were often overturned by the courts. Agencies made basic mistakes: skipping mandatory procedural steps, ignoring important evidence, or failing to address opposing arguments. Many people thought he had learned his lesson and would pick competent, experienced administrators this time. They were mostly wrong.