By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
Despite the continued consolidation of political power in the White House, a trend that did not begin with President Trump, we are seeing other centers of political and economic power resisting the effort by the national government to impair environmental protection and scientific research. Last week, the National Science Foundation suspended its effort to dismantle the nation’s ocean observation system. As reported by Maxine Joselow in the New York Times:
“The Trump administration is abandoning its plan to dismantle a $368 million ocean monitoring system critical to understanding climate change and marine ecosystems, bowing to a bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill. The National Science Foundation had said in May that it would begin removing hundreds of underwater instruments this month that collect data on coastal flooding, marine heat waves and other climate and weather events. But the agency announced on Thursday that it will pause efforts to take apart the system, known as the Ocean Observatories Initiative, while convening an expert panel to determine its future…The Senate passed a measure Wednesday that would block the government from dismantling the system, with lawmakers in both parties warning that the action would be illegal and would threaten the safety of coastal communities. The Trump administration had also tried to cut the program’s funds the last two years, but Congress restored the money both times.”
Perhaps the most dramatic and short-sighted of Administration policies has been Environmental Destruction Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin’s effort to withdraw the scientific finding that greenhouse gases endanger America’s environment and public health. The Clean Air Act requires EPA to consider dangers to air quality from new technologies and conditions that did not exist in 1970 when the Clean Air Act was enacted. During the George W. Bush Administration, a decision by the Supreme Court directed the Environmental Protection Agency to determine if greenhouse gases posed such a danger. The agency, then called the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), determined there was a danger, and EPA began the long process of regulating and reducing that danger. The agency I now call the EDA (destruction, not protection) withdrew that finding. Perhaps they will now withdraw the finding that Earth orbits the sun or that gravity exists. Fortunately, our political system is not monolithic, and reality, particularly scientific reality, has a way of reasserting itself. In March of this year, New York State Attorney General Letitia James helped lead a group of 39 states, counties, and cities opposing the repeal of the endangerment finding and observed that:
“Across our country, communities are already suffering from climate disasters. From freak storms to devastating floods to deadly cold snaps and unbearable heat waves, the climate crisis is here, and it is already reshaping the way we live... “Instead of helping Americans face our new reality, the Trump administration has chosen denial, repealing critical protections that are foundational to the federal government’s response to climate change…” https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2026/attorney-general-james-leads-challenge-trump-administrations-climate-rollback
Her press release of March 19, 2026, stated that:
“Today, Attorney General James and the coalition filed a petition for review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, challenging the repeal and arguing that it contradicts the overwhelming scientific evidence of the continued threat posed by climate change. The coalition also argues that the legal justification for the repeal cannot be squared with the agency’s statutory requirements under the Clean Air Act, and that the Trump administration is attempting to rehash arguments already considered and settled by the Supreme Court in 2007. The coalition is asking the D.C. Circuit to reinstate the endangerment finding by vacating the administration’s rescission.”
States are also fighting ideologically motivated and likely illegal funding cuts. New York and 12 other state attorneys general sued the administration over the termination of billions of dollars in congressionally approved energy and infrastructure grants, arguing that the Trump Administration cannot withdraw funding simply because it opposes programs enacted before they took office. Local governments have also fought funding cutbacks: in October, 2025, Harris County, Texas, sued the EPA to restore a cancelled solar power grant, and in March, 2026, the county decided to allocate its own funds to begin a community solar initiative with the hope that the federal funding might eventually be restored. According to Sarah Brager’s reporting in Community Impact:
“After months of standby, Harris County moved forward with a multimillion-dollar initiative to develop long lasting solar energy in low-income and underserved communities countywide. Commissioners Court on March 19 authorized $88.3 million to fund projects for the Solar for All plan despite the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempted termination of grants associated with the program. Harris County filed a lawsuit against the EPA in October to reclaim the promised funds, and officials said a decision is expected later this year…The initiative aims to ease the financial burden of rising energy costs in vulnerable communities and enhance grid resilience during extreme weather events, according to county documents. County officials said exact sites are being evaluated, with a focus on locations that would "generate the most economic benefit" for participating residents. The county expects to connect approximately 10,000 households to the clean energy sources through retail electricity providers, per the proposal. Electricity use is expected to decrease by about 20% as a result—an estimated $468 in annual savings for qualifying households.”
Administrator Zeldin argued that the “Big Beautiful Bill” required that he rescind funding that was unobligated to communities that had received grants for solar programs, even if the grants had already been awarded. He also seems to oppose federal subsidies for renewable energy, which is the overall stance of the Trump Administration. The Trump team is a wholly owned subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry. They consider fossil fuels cheaper, more reliable, and superior to what they term expensive and intermittent renewable energy. They seem unaware of advances in battery technology and the current price comparison, in which renewable energy is generally less expensive than fossil fuels. Local communities in Texas understand energy economics and are willing to invest their own tax dollars when the federal government fails to fulfill its commitments.
In addition to legal action, Congress itself has made some modest efforts to reassert its power of the purse. According to Jory Heckman of the Federal News Network:
“Congressional appropriators are rejecting some of the most severe agency budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration and are looking to put additional guardrails on unilateral agency reorganizations that could further shrink the federal workforce. A “minibus” of three spending bills for fiscal 2026, released by the House and Senate appropriations committees on Monday, prohibits covered agencies from using congressional funds to carry out most agency reorganization activities until they provide advanced notice to appropriators…The spending package also includes language ensuring that the National Park Service, National Weather Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service and EPA maintain staffing levels that allow them to carry out their statutory obligations. Democrats on the appropriations committees said the spending deal reasserts Congress’s power of the purse, and seeks to rein in the Trump administration’s repurposing of agency budgets and unilateral agency reorganizations.”
Environmental nonprofits have been quite active in suing the Trump environmental rollbacks. Earthjustice, NRDC, Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club, and many others have sued to restore all sorts of reductions in environmental protection. The science community has also been very aggressive in countering the Administration’s scientific misinformation and disinformation. Most notable was the National Academy of Sciences’ report on the science of greenhouse gas pollution. According to this important report:
“… the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine says the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gases is beyond scientific dispute. The report focuses on evidence gathered by the scientific community since 2009, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that greenhouse gas emissions threaten public health and welfare. The EPA recently gave notice of proposed rulemaking indicating its intention to rescind this finding. The report says EPA’s 2009 finding was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence. Much of the understanding of climate change that was uncertain or tentative in 2009 has now been resolved by scientific research, the report says…Human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change harm the health of people in the United States.Climate change intensifies risks to humans from exposures to extreme heat, ground-level ozone, airborne particulate matter, extreme weather events, and airborne allergens, affecting incidence of cardiovascular, respiratory, and other diseases. Climate change has increased exposure to pollutants from wildfire smoke and dust, which has been linked to adverse health effects. The increasing severity of some extreme events has contributed to injury, illness, and death in affected communities. Health impacts related to climate-sensitive infectious diseases — such as those carried by insects and contaminated water — have increased.”
The membership of the National Academies is limited to America’s most eminent scientists. Membership is a great honor and an indication of path-breaking scientific accomplishment. The fact that these scientists considered it vital that the Environmental Destruction Agency’s disinformation be countered is remarkable and a troubling sign of these difficult times.
Finally, the private sector has been continuing to move ahead on renewable energy and sustainability management. Corporate sustainability reports continue to disclose corporate environmental and community impacts as well as efforts to ensure fair treatment of employees and diversification of governance, management, and staff. The new book I am a co-author of, Sustainability Metrics and Management, discusses the integration of ESG into routine management and the demand for sustainability management and metrics by investors interested in better data on environmental and other corporate risks.
Corporate resistance to the Administration’s anti-environmental and anti-science orientation is based on bottom line rather than policy considerations. Many corporate leaders believe that clean energy, climate-related infrastructure, and climate adaptation are necessary for competitiveness, grid reliability, progress in Artificial Intelligence, and energy cost control. We are in a highly competitive global economy. To win, companies require excellent science, constant improvements in technology, and constructive partnerships with a government that understands and does not distort the reality of modern society, culture, economics, and environment. An anti-environment and anti-science government in Washington is bad for business. A government industrial policy based on the economy in 1980 is a prescription for economic irrelevance. Fortunately, American business continues to invest in science and technology even as our government has abandoned its post-World War II leadership in supporting American science. While the Trump team disinvests in science, governments in China, Europe, and Canada work to attract our top scientists to laboratories they support. If this continues, the American economy will enter a long period of decline.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
