Connect the Dots

In the first few weeks of his second term, President Trump has taken several steps to roll back climate policy and boost fossil fuel production, including issuing executive orders to pause the disbursement of funds already appropriated by Congress through the Inflation Reduction Act and halting approval of all new offshore wind projects, fast-tracking fossil fuel development through his National Energy Emergency declaration, and undoing the Biden Administration’s ban on oil drilling off most of the coastal U.S. 

A March 2024 analysis by Carbon Brief suggests that regulatory rollbacks under the Trump Administration could result in an additional 4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent being released into the atmosphere by 2030 — an amount equal to the combined annual emissions of the EU and Japan. 

The Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda is bolstered by a number of highly active and obstructive U.S. corporations that have vested interests in stalling climate progress. Of the 178 companies and industry associations InfluenceMap has assessed in the U.S., 39% are misaligned from science-based recommendations in their policy engagement. This stands in stark contrast to other regions InfluenceMap covers, such as Europe, where only 19% of entities are misaligned. 

InfluenceMap’s recent analysis of U.S. corporate climate advocacy finds three key trends on corporate policy influence observed during the first Trump presidency that are likely to ramp up again in his second term.

1. High-emitting corporations will shift from defense (lawsuits) to offense (rollbacks), as they are emboldened to fight regulation.
2. Across the economy, corporate interests will continue to advocate heavily on issues of permitting reform and infrastructure, particularly as they relate to the future of fossil gas in the energy mix.
3. Corporate entities will continue publicizing narratives that claim to be in the public interest — often in the name of “consumer choice” — but ultimately serve to protect and promote fossil fuels. 

As these powerful interests take hold, state-level policy ambition will be crucial to maintaining the momentum of climate action. Across the country, a multitude of efforts are already underway. To date, 23 states and the District of Columbia have adopted economy-wide emissions reduction plans with long-term targets and timelines that lay the framework for specific legislation targeting everything from clean energy buildout, to building electrification, to carbon pricing. In December 2023, utility regulators in Massachusetts issued a ruling that set the stage for transitioning away from the use of fossil gas for heating, making it the first public utility to pass an order dissuading future gas expansion. State legislators followed with a sweeping clean energy bill that passed in November 2024 which aims to modernize the grid and reform the gas distribution system. 

The example set by these leading states is where the optimism lies in the next four years. Existing state policy has already driven considerable nationwide climate progress; for example, the Department of Energy estimates that state-level energy policies are responsible for nearly half of all new renewable buildout in the U.S. since 2000. So, while the Trump administration pursues its deregulatory agenda at the federal level, climate progress can still march onwards with a redoubling of efforts in the states. While state action alone cannot deliver the emissions reductions needed for the country to meet its (now abandoned) commitments under the Paris Agreement, it can keep us moving forward. Research published during Trump’s first term found that local and state climate policy could collectively achieve 75% of the action needed to keep the U.S. in alignment with the Paris Agreement.