Obama’s Environmental Legacy Just Went Up in Smoke

President Obama’s environmental legacy went up in smoke the minute Donald Trump won. Obama has spent the past four years pursuing an aggressive regulatory agenda aimed at lowering the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels, boosting green energy, and giving the U.S. a leading role in the global fight against climate change. His hope was to hand off this regulatory framework to Hillary Clinton, who would then spend much of her term following through on it.

That stops cold now. Trump has vowed to reverse course on Obama’s entire slate of environmental policies by rescinding “job-killing” regulations, including rules limiting oil and gas development on federal lands, as well as Obama’s signature climate initiative, the Clean Power Plan (CPP). Because much of what Obama put in place was done through either regulatory rule-making or executive order, Trump may be able to make good on most of those promises, especially since he’ll be bolstered by support from congressional Republicans, says Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners. “We spent much of our time examining how Clinton might expand the existing green agenda,” he says. “Now we’re looking at what may constrain Trump’s attempt to collapse it.”