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On April 8, the Trump administration issued the “Protecting American Energy From State Overreach” executive order (EO), another in a blitz of orders and declarations focused on the energy sector. As with the other energy-related EOs, it contains numerous references to advancing so-called “energy dominance” — which is largely and ideologically focused on fossil fuel industries — despite the United States already being “dominant” in this sector.

On January 20 — otherwise known as Day One of Trump 2.0 — the president signed a barrage of executive orders, including one declaring a national energy emergency. While it is unsurprising that his policy priorities will reflect his long-standing antipathy toward climate protections and renewables — not to mention the fossil fuel industry’s financial support during his campaign — his attempt to frame this policy by declaring a “national energy emergency” is beyond disingenuous. We have faced real threats to energy security in the past and have weathered them through democratic processes, not by executive fiat, and this isn’t one.

We at the Center for Progressive Reform cannot sit idly by and watch the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on the transgender community here in the United States and around the world. The Center’s staff condemns the Trump administration’s attacks on the transgender community — especially trans children.

Widely available clean drinking water is something that we usually take for granted. One of the main reasons is that the vast majority of the U.S. population has access to public water systems, which are in charge of providing safe drinking water to their users. However, in many parts of the country, particularly rural communities, people rely on private wells for sourcing their drinking water, which broadly lack regulatory safeguards for public health and well-being. This is particularly striking in Virginia, where 22 percent of the population relies on water supplied by a private well, with the share of private well use reaching upwards of 80 percent of the population in the Commonwealth’s most rural counties. As we explore in a new report, there is little comprehensive information on the distribution and severity of nitrate contamination in private well systems in Virginia.