Can Trump Block State Climate Action? 

Like a modern-day version of the 10 plagues, climate disasters continue to fall on Americans all across the country. The North Carolina hurricane, the Los Angeles wildfires, Kentucky’s deadly flooding, and the start of Phoenix’s 100-degree season a month early in April are just the latest signs. 

But like a modern-day pharaoh, President Trump is busy issuing executive orders to prop up dirty coal, oil, and gas polluters and block the transition to cleaner, safer energy.  

Last week, he took aim at states that have shown climate leadership with an edict entitled “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach.” The order directs his attorney general to sue states and local governments to block their climate and clean energy policies. 

There’s just one problem: Those U.S. Department of Justice lawsuits would run afoul of state authority that is guaranteed under the Constitution and multiple federal laws.  

Like Trump’s previous orders to purge federal grants and websites of wrong-think, this one singles out state laws “purporting to address ‘climate change’ or involving ‘environmental, social, and governance’ initiatives, ‘environmental justice,’ carbon or ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions.”  

The order claims the leadership states are enacting “burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.” But states and cities are dealing with the on-the-ground reality of climate disasters, not “ideology.” They are following the scientific and economic facts where they lead.  

The order says, “Americans must be permitted to heat their homes, fuel their cars, and have peace of mind— free from policies that make energy more expensive and inevitably degrade quality of life.” But states know that renewable power is often cheaper and more reliable than coal-fired electricity, and they know that clean cars save consumers thousands of dollars at the pump. 

The order attacks California’s carbon cap as “radical” and “impossible” to meet. But carbon caps in both California and the Northeast have been met reliably and inexpensively for two decades.  

Trump’s order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi “to take all appropriate action to stop the enforcement” of a wide array of state climate and clean energy laws and policies deemed to be “unconstitutional, preempted by Federal law, or otherwise unenforceable.”  

This makes a mockery of traditional conservative respect for states’ rights. For him, oil, gas, and coal rights trump states’ rights. The Constitution and many federal laws stand in the way, however. 

The Constitution’s 10th Amendment guarantees that states retain the sovereign powers not expressly delegated to the federal government. Those include their well-established “police powers” to protect public health and curb pollution. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state authority to enact and enforce such laws from the early 19th century to the present day.  

Federal statutes amplify these constitutional protections for states. To be sure, the Constitution gives the federal government the authority to set national health and environmental safeguards, and Congress can preempt state regulatory authority. But it has rarely done so in environmental statutes. The Clean Air Act, for example, tells the EPA to set national emission standards. At the same time, that law expressly protects the right of states to set stronger standards for industrial pollution sources. This includes state laws that limit or cap carbon emissions. The Clean Air Act also preserves California’s authority to set emission standards for motor vehicles, and it gives other states the right to adopt the Golden State’s standards. 

The Federal Power Act and other national energy laws recognize states’ authority to decide which kinds of electric power generation to build within their own borders. When states adopt laws requiring more wind and solar power, the federal government has no authority to say no. 

Trump’s executive order saves its harshest words for lawsuits brought by dozens of cities and states and for “polluters pay” statutes recently enacted in New York and Vermont, accusing them of trying to “extort” billions from energy producers. But states and localities facing the enormous cost of climate disasters within their own borders are simply seeking to hold the biggest oil companies financially responsible for the harms they have helped cause.  

When states tackle climate change, they are not trying “to dictate national energy policy,” and they are not “undermin[ing] Federalism,” as the executive order claims. They are using their constitutionally and statutorily protected powers to safeguard the well-being of their own citizens. It is Trump’s order that tramples on federalism.  

Trump, you will not be surprised, is seeking to bully and threaten mainly blue states. But it is not only blue states that are at risk.  

Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, now representing Big Oil, has already cited the executive order when attacking Louisiana for backing suits by its most vulnerable parishes seeking compensation from oil companies for the loss of their land to the Gulf of [check notes] Mexico.  

There’s no doubt that the states will resist this blatantly illegal order. New York governor Kathy Hochul and New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham already responded on behalf of the 24 governors in the U.S. Climate Alliance: 

“The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority. We are a nation of states—and laws—and we will not be deterred. We will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis that safeguard Americans’ fundamental right to clean air and water, create good-paying jobs, grow the clean energy economy, and make our future healthier and safer.” 

NRDC will stand with them to defend and strengthen climate and clean energy action by leadership states and to oppose President Trump’s latest power grab. 

This blog was originally published on April 15, 2025, and has been updated with new information and links.