Dear NRDC Supporter,

Last month, NRDC surpassed a sobering milestone: documenting the 500th anti-environmental attack by the Trump administration.

That works out to roughly one harmful action every day since President Trump returned to office in 2025. And it signifies how the Trump administration is, by far, the most destructive presidential administration in history when it comes to the environment and public health.

NRDC’s White House Watch systematically documents anti-environmental actions across the Trump administration. The list documents a coordinated effort to dismantle decades of hard-won safeguards that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, the public lands we share, and the wildlife we appreciate.

NRDC is fighting back, thanks to NRDC’s 3 million members and supporters. Your contributions have helped NRDC’s powerful legal team file 51 lawsuits against the Trump administration — that’s roughly one lawsuit every 11 days — to halt or reverse these actions.

While we can’t list all 500+ anti-environmental actions here, below is a sample of some of the worst:

🛑 Repealing the EPA’s endangerment finding — the scientific and legal foundation that requires the federal government to reduce pollution causing climate change — as pretext for killing many key climate and clean energy programs.

✅ NRDC’s Response: Alongside more than a dozen allies, NRDC sued the U.S. EPA and its administrator, Lee Zeldin, in February over its illegal endangerment finding repeal and expects to fight it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Find out more.

🛑 Using the rarely convened “God Squad” committee to unilaterally exempt oil and gas companies in the Gulf of Mexico from critical endangered species protections, threatening endangered whales, seabirds, manatees, and sea turtles harmed by offshore oil drilling with extinction.

✅ NRDC’s Response: NRDC sued the Trump administration to overturn the God Squad’s arbitrary decision and will continue fighting in court to hold the administration accountable to the law and safeguard endangered species. Find out more.

🛑 Pursuing an unprecedented expansion of oil drilling across the Arctic, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in wildlife-rich areas of the Western Arctic, while also pushing to shield oil companies from liability for harming or killing protected polar bears and Pacific walruses on Alaska’s North Slope.

✅ NRDC’s Response: NRDC is in federal court fighting new proposals to expand oil and gas drilling across the treasured Arctic region. Find out more.

🛑 Giving energy utilities and power plant operators a free pass to pollute by scrapping standards on toxins like mercury and lead.

✅ NRDC’s Response: NRDC and its coalition partners sued to restore the updated Mercury Air and Toxics Standards, which build on prior rules that have successfully driven down mercury pollution from power plants by over 90% since 2015. Find out more.

🛑 Using more than $2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars to pay off wind power companies to abandon critically-needed renewable energy projects, threatening our climate fight and sticking utility customers with higher energy bills.

✅ NRDC’s Response: NRDC’s legal team filed multiple amicus briefs in support of lawsuits seeking to block Trump administration bans on new onshore and offshore wind power projects, and we recently won a lawsuit blocking unfair IRS rules meant to stifle new wind and solar power projects. Find out more.

🛑 Caving to the chemical industry by proposing to roll back important drinking water standards protecting millions of Americans from toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, immune system damage, and other serious health risks.

✅ NRDC’s Response: NRDC’s attorneys are working in court to defend critical PFAS drinking water standards from these industry legal attacks. Find out more.

The consequences of the Trump administration’s anti-environmental agenda are already being felt. Americans face higher energy costs as clean energy projects are delayed or canceled. Families are more vulnerable to pollution as enforcement is sidelined. Agencies tasked with protecting us, like the U.S. EPA and FEMA, are being systematically weakened. Clean energy projects are being dismantled even as climate-fueled disasters become more frequent and more costly.

However, time and again, the courts have ordered the Trump administration to follow the law, agencies have been forced to release illegally withheld funds, and harmful actions have been overturned altogether.

Each victory matters, and helps protect communities and the environment from even greater harm. The administration may be moving fast, but accountability is moving too. Because of members and supporters like you, NRDC is able to keep up the fight for the future of our health and of our planet’s health.

Sincerely,

Alexandra Adams
Chief Policy Advocacy Officer, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)