This post is the first in a series.
The Environmental and Climate Justice Implications
President Donald Trump’s attack on electric vehicles threatens not only the nation’s progress in fighting climate change, but torpedoes our ability to achieve healthy air. The Inauguration Day executive order on “Unleashing American Energy” calls for eliminating the “electric vehicle (EV) mandate” and “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government distortions that favor EVs ….” Slowing our transition to clean vehicles will have the worst consequences for vulnerable frontline communities living near highways, ports, and warehouses, communities that already experience a disproportionate share of environmental harms.
EPA has observed that “[p]ollution from the transportation sector has been a long-standing obstacle to advancing environmental justice, as many communities of color and low-income families live near areas where pollution from vehicles and engines is abundant, and therefore experience disproportionate exposures to this pollution.” As of 2023, EPA estimates that almost 140 million people in the United States live in counties that do not meet public health standards for conventional pollutants. According to the American Lung Association, the residents of these counties are disproportionately people of color.
Nationally, vehicles contribute 26 percent of U.S. nitrogen oxide emissions, which contribute to unhealthy levels of smog (ozone). In California, the state with the worst air quality in the nation, three-fourths of nitrogen oxide emissions come from vehicles. Diesel emissions from trucks and equipment are especially dangerous. California estimates that 70 percent of the state’s cancer risk comes from diesel fuel combustion, risks that are concentrated in the communities that experience high levels of truck traffic.
Transportation emissions are also the single largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, constituting 35 percent of U.S. emissions. However much the Trump administration may seek to deny it, climate change is already posing an existential risk, especially to those who lack the resources to adapt and recover.
Rigorous emission controls on internal combustion engines have substantially reduced mobile source pollution, but they are not enough. To meet the federal government’s public health standards for conventional pollutants (the National Ambient Air Quality Standards), California is relying on increasing numbers of electric vehicles. Many states, facing similar challenges in meeting public health standards, have followed California’s lead.
To achieve healthy air and avert the worst impacts of climate change, the era of burning fossil fuels inside our cars and trucks must come to a close. Millions of marginalized communities still breathe unhealthy air and are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Transitioning to a clean transportation system requires regulatory pushes (to be discussed in Part II of this series) and government investment (to be discussed in Part III).
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Alice Kaswan | February 17, 2025
President Donald Trump’s attack on electric vehicles threatens not only the nation’s progress in fighting climate change, but torpedoes our ability to achieve healthy air. The Inauguration Day executive order on “Unleashing American Energy” calls for eliminating the “electric vehicle (EV) mandate” and “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government distortions that favor EVs ….” Slowing our transition to clean vehicles will have the worst consequences for vulnerable frontline communities living near highways, ports, and warehouses, communities that already experience a disproportionate share of environmental harms.
Bryan Dunning, Joseph Tomain | February 7, 2025
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.
James Goodwin | February 7, 2025
On February 6, the U.S. Senate confirmed Russell Vought as the next director of the powerful White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which has been at the epicenter of the Trump administration’s push to remake the federal government in an authoritarian image.
James Goodwin | February 5, 2025
Over the course of two posts, I have explored in detail my major takeaways from the new “10-out, 1-in” executive order. President Donald Trump sort of announced the order last Friday night with a Fact Sheet, but not the actual order itself. Remarkably, the order is still not on the White House website but can be viewed on a third-party website. In this post, I offer my final set of observations on what the order is likely to mean during the second Trump administration.
James Goodwin | February 4, 2025
In my previous post, I began exploring some of my major takeaways from the new “10-out, 1-in” executive order. President Donald Trump sort of announced the order Friday night with a Fact Sheet, but not the actual order itself. At this point, the order is not on the White House website but can be viewed on a third-party website. In this post, I will offer some additional observations and analysis.
Center for Progressive Reform | February 3, 2025
The second Trump administration’s disastrous early-term actions do nothing to address the economic inequality that our political classes have long ignored. In its first two weeks, the administration has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accords, reversed federal initiatives on environmental justice, withheld public health information, frozen spending on environmental and climate mitigation programs, threatened to withhold federal disaster aid, and just recently threatened to fire more than 1,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) workers who focus on climate and environmental enforcement.
James Goodwin | February 3, 2025
Late Friday night, while news about Elon Musk’s apparent unconstitutional purge of the Office Personnel Management was beginning to trickle out, President Trump quietly announced his promised executive order calling on agencies to eliminate 10 existing “rules” for every new rule they want to institute.
Brian Gumm, Bryan Dunning, Catalina Gonzalez, Federico Holm, James Goodwin, Minor Sinclair, Rachel Mayo, Sophie Loeb, Spencer Green, Tara Quinonez | January 30, 2025
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.
Daniel Farber | January 29, 2025
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.