An Executive Order to Vandalize the Earth - and Destroy State's Sovereignty

My friend John Elwood, climate expert/activist and theologian, has a Substack account.

Today's post is about Trump's executive order of April 8, 2025, in which he orders his Attorney General to interfere with State's laws and right to sovereignty in order to "Drill, Baby, Drill".

The best way for me to help him publicize the post is to copy it onto my blog and put it into my social media:

Well, his majesty unleashed another edict yesterday, this time aimed at anything or anyone who hopes for their children to inherit an inhabitable world. He calls it an order “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach.” It would more honestly be called an order “Eliminating Any Limits on ‘Drill, Baby Drill!’” You live downwind of polluting fossil fuels? Fracking is poisoning your groundwater? Mercury is killing your babies? Climate pollution is forcing you to flee floods and fires? Pity. I’ll be the one to decide whether that’s a problem. Not you. Not your local government. And definitely not your stupid (Blue) State legislatures.

This is the mind of a dictator and planetary vandal, not the president of a constitutional democracy.

Here are the details: Three things he’s actually ordered the DOJ (“J” for Justice, a quaint traditional concept) to do.

First, IDENTIFY all laws from any governing authority (other than himself) that in any way limit fossil fuel exploration, development, siting, “production” (as they like to call it), and burning. Find anything that limits where, how and under what safeguards fossil fuel pollutants can find their way into your lungs and bloodstream. And your children’s. And your atmosphere. And the earth under your feet? Find it.

Second, STOP THE ENFORCEMENT of any such restraints, if his handpicked staffers decide that they’re not legal. Specifically mentioned: anything addressing “climate change” (he can’t even write the words without putting them in quotation marks); anything involving ESG (apparently preferring anti-environmental, antisocial and ill-governance); anything addressing environmental justice (preferring that historically oppressed communities continue to bear the brunt of pollution); anything involving “greenhouse gas” emissions (another term needing quotation marks, lest anyone imagine that’s a real thing); and (Eeee gad!) attempting to collect carbon taxes (only the Big Man gets to impose beautiful taxes nowadays). Stop any enforcement.

And third, report back the boss man in sixty days—through counsel, of course. He won’t read the stuff himself. But tell him what you did. It’s kind of like the DOGE memos: Five things I did this week to vandalize the earth and sicken my fellow Americans.

I am old now. But I never thought I’d live to see an American president of either party flagrantly throwing the full weight of that office behind obscenely rich polluters, and targeting the science and clean energy efforts that are our children’s only hopes of survival and flourishing. If it feels to you like there’s nothing you can do, I feel you. I feel helpless a lot of the time too. But you can do something. You can do a lot.

First, please, speak out. Share this post. Talk to your family and friends. Whatever else, don’t be silent. And then, it’s so easy to call or write your senators and congressional reps. You can do it all online. Feel free to use this script if it helps:

I’m writing you to register my dismay at President Trump’s Executive Order titled “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach” issued on April 8, 2025. The order attempts to seize all fossil fuel regulatory power away from state and local governments—those most familiar with local environmental impacts—and concentrate them in the hands of the federal government. It makes no secret of the fact that this administration has no intention whatsoever of exercising its own regulatory power if it in any way would obstruct or delay fossil fuel development and profits. I ask the [Congressperson/Senator/Governor] to take all available measures to resist and speak out against this damaging order. Thank you.”

And thanks for caring. Keep the faith. Somehow, we’ll make it through, together.

Read the order for yourself here.

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