Environmental groups prepare for a pro-industry, pro-extraction Trump administration

On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump frequently talked about slashing environmental regulations on industry, freeing them up to do as they wish because climate change is a “hoax.”

With about 70 days until the second Trump administration takes office, environmental advocacy groups in Wisconsin are preparing for how they’ll respond to the actions of the Trump-led Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Agriculture and the Interior as they try to protect the state’s air, water and natural resources.

Howard Learner, president of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, says the first Trump term had negative effects on the environment, but the difference this time around is that Wisconsin and its midwestern neighbors have Democratic governors, attorneys general and liberal majorities on their state Supreme Courts.

“For the next few years in Wisconsin, there’s a Democratic governor, a Democratic-appointed Wisconsin [Department of Natural Resources] (DNR), a Democratic attorney general and a Democratic majority Supreme Court,” Learner says. “Where previously a number of DNR issues got tied up by the Republican majority, the current Supreme Court has given DNR more latitude to be protective of the environment. So there’s an opportunity for the states to be stepping up if the federal government is pulling back, and Wisconsin should seize that opportunity.”

Many environmental advocates are also still in “wait-and-see” mode, wondering which party will win control of the U.S. House of Representatives and which members of Congress will control the body’s committees.

Sara Walling, Clean Wisconsin’s water and agriculture program director, points to areas where there’s broad bipartisan consensus and there isn’t need for concern — largely the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a multi-agency collaboration to protect the largest freshwater lakes in the world.

“Over the years, since its initial authorization, and then its reauthorization several times now, including during the Trump administration, both parties have really supported Great Lakes Restoration funding and those programs, so we fully expect that it will be intact and continue to be authorized moving forward,” Walling says.

But she adds there are questions about the level of funding for projects such as cleanup efforts in the Milwaukee River estuary. She also says it’s unlikely progress will continue for starting a similar large-scale restoration project with the Mississippi River.

Walling says she’s concerned about  the Trump-led EPA’s reliance on scientific research conducted by industries the agency regulates.

“Generally speaking, the Trump administration in the past, and I don’t see any of this changing going forward, does not tend to rely on science when making a lot of its decisions at the EPA level,” she says.

Walling expects the incoming president’s administration to reject Biden administration EPA provisions “that have really been very heavily supported by really expansive scientific studies,” she says. “There’s a lot of initiatives that the EPA has been undertaking that are really a science-driven exploration of any environmental issue, to use that science as the backing for potentially new regulations.”

Walling says that the pesticide and agricultural industries are areas where Republicans have complained about what the scientific research has found, and the Trump-led EPA and USDA may swing the pendulum back toward using research conducted by the companies themselves that ignores potential harms to the environment.

Gussie Lord, the managing attorney of the tribal partnerships program at Earthjustice, says that for Wisconsin’s Native American tribes, the environmental concerns of the Trump administration focus largely on the construction of the Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline in northern Wisconsin and the delisting of the gray wolf, once again allowing the animal to be hunted in the state.

“We don’t know for sure what’s going to happen or what their priorities are going to be, but we can look at the previous Trump administration and the things that have been said by his advisors and former advisors, and we can surmise that there’s going to be a focus toward more extractive industry practices, including mining, oil and gas,” Lord says.

Lord says protections under the National Environmental Policy Act, wetland protections under the Clean Water Act and subsidies for green energy are all at risk of being reduced. He also considers it likely that the new administration will approve federal permits for Line 5.

On Friday, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who represents much of northern Wisconsin, wrote in his weekly email newsletter about “tapping into America’s clean oil and gas resources” and that removing the gray wolf from the federal endangered species list is a priority under the new administration

“I am committed to passing my legislation that will return gray wolf management back to the states, allowing us to protect our communities and rural livelihoods,” he wrote.

In the previous Congress, Tiffany was a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources and chairman of the subcommittee on federal lands. During his last term, he allied with right-wing anti-conservation group American Stewards of Liberty to oppose conservation projects in northern Wisconsin.

American Stewards of Liberty (ASL) played a role in developing Project 2025, the policy plan written for the Trump administration. The president-elect said during the campaign the document wasn’t going to reflect his administration, but Trump allies have touted it as a playbook for his term in the days after his victory.

Charlie Carlin, director of strategic initiatives at Gathering Waters, which focuses on land conservation in Wisconsin, says ASL’s ideology becoming a main aim of the federal government’s environmental policy is worrying.

“If we take seriously that Project 2025 is essentially a guiding document for what the next Trump administration looks like, then I think we need to be really concerned about the future of permanent land conservation, kind of across the board,” Carlin says. That extends to agricultural land and working forest land as well as natural and wildlife areas, he adds.

ASL and Tiffany have been outspoken in their support for extractive industries, and Carlin says he’s worried about the trade-off  the Trump administration appears likely to make.

“I think it’s incredibly concerning — what’s the long term sustainability of both the landscape and the economy of northern Wisconsin if the levers of federal government are used to incentivize extraction [which] in northern Wisconsin is likely to be open pit mining,” Carlin says.

“There’s potentially a major short term economic gain for the wealthiest — for the people who are the owners of those mining companies, or folks who invest in those companies.” he adds. “But then what suffers there is both water quality and forest land cover for the long term. So maybe you get 10 years or maybe a generation worth of revenue … extracted as you’re mining, and then you’re left with many generations of poison water or impaired water quality.”

He adds that short-term gain could result in a long-term loss in more sustainable industries, diminishing property tax values for communities in the region.

“If you strip the timber off of the land in order to dig a big hole to extract minerals, then what you don’t have is the regular annual income that supports loggers and that supports the truckers and that supports the mills,  and also, that land base supports the outdoor recreation economy and the second-home economy that provides so much of the property tax base up north,” Carlin says. “And so what you’re talking about is this sort of short term blitz that is going to benefit a very few people at the consequence of the long term environmental and economic health of the entire region.”

Henry Redman is a staff reporter for the Wisconsin Examiner who focuses on covering Wisconsin's towns and rural areas. He previously covered crime and courts at the Daily Jefferson County Union. A lifelong Midwesterner, he was born in Cleveland, Ohio and graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a degree in journalism in May 2019.

Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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