Democratic governors hit back at Trump order blocking state climate policies
In a joint statement, the Democratic governors of New York and New Mexico, Kathy Hochul and Michelle Lujan Grisham, who co-chair the US Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of 24 state governors committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, responded to the order targeting state authority.
The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority.
We are a nation of states – and laws – and we will not be deterred. We will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis that safeguard Americans’ fundamental right to clean air and water, create good-paying jobs, grow the clean energy economy, and make our future healthier and safer.
Key events
US issues new sanctions on Iran as Trump seeks talks
The US issued fresh sanctions on Iran on Wednesday, the Treasury Department said, two days after Donald Trump announced the US planned direct talks with Tehran over its nuclear program (which Iran then said would actually be indirect).
The department designated five entities and one person based in Iran for their support of the country’s nuclear program, Treasury said in a statement seen by Reuters, with the aim of denying Iran a nuclear weapon.
The designated groups include the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and its subordinate, Iran Centrifuge Technology Company, the Treasury said.
The action comes after Trump made a surprise announcement on Monday that the US and Iran were poised to begin direct talks on Tehran’s nuclear program, but Iran’s foreign minister said the discussions in Oman would be indirect.
In a further sign of the difficult path to any deal between the two geopolitical foes, Trump issued a stark warning that if the talks were unsuccessful, “Iran is going to be in great danger”.
Dharna Noor
And this is from Dharna Noor’s story on Vermont’s “game-changing” Climate Superfund Act, which compels oil companies to pay potentially billions of dollars for climate impacts caused by their emissions (Trump’s order reads: “Vermont similarly extorts energy producers for alleged past contributions to greenhouse gas emissions anywhere in the United States or the globe.”)
In May last year, Vermont became the first state to enact a law holding oil firms financially responsible for climate damages.
Modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, the Climate Superfund Act directs the state to charge major fossil fuel companies potentially billions of dollars to pay for climate impacts to which their emissions have contributed.
Under the legislation, Vermont officials will have until January 2026 to assess the total costs to the state from greenhouse gases emitted between 1995 and 2024, including the impacts on public health, biodiversity and economic development. They will then use federal data to determine how much to charge individual polluters for those harms.
Dharna Noor
Here is some more detail from my colleague Dharna Noor’s report from January, which has a lot of useful context for New York and Vermont’s climate actions Trump is upset with.
Weeks after Trump’s election, the state’s governor, Kathy Hochul, signed several major climate bills into law. One will force big oil and gas producers to help pay for climate effects to which their emissions have contributed for the next 25 years, similar to a measure Vermont passed months before.
Another new law will ensure schools are built far from from highly polluting roadways, and a third will expand the state’s 10-year-old fracking ban to outlaw the process of injecting liquified carbon dioxide to pull gas from the ground. Days after Trump’s election, Hochul also abruptly resurrected a plan to enact a toll for driving in congested zones, and this month pledged to allocate $1bn to greening the economy.
In response to Trump exiting the US from the Paris climate accords for the second time, Hochul also led a group of two dozen governors, representing nearly 55% of the US population, redoubling commitments to slash planet-warming pollution: “Our states and territories continue to have broad authority under the US constitution to protect our progress and advance the climate solutions we need,” Hochul wrote.
During Trump’s first term, New York also signed an ambitious 2019 mandate to obtain 70% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2030.
Trump’s order also singled out New York and Vermont. It reads:
Many States have enacted, or are in the process of enacting, burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.
New York, for example, enacted a ‘climate change’ extortion law that seeks to retroactively impose billions in fines (erroneously labelled ‘compensatory payments’) on traditional energy producers for their purported past contributions to greenhouse gas emissions not only in New York but also anywhere in the United States and the world.
Vermont similarly extorts energy producers for alleged past contributions to greenhouse gas emissions anywhere in the United States or the globe.
Politico has a statement from the office of the California state attorney general, Rob Bonta, saying that it “remains committed to using the full force of the law and tools of this office to address the climate crisis head-on and protect public health and welfare”.
A spokesperson for Bonta said the office was reviewing Trump’s executive order, “but this much is clear: the Trump administration continues to attempt to gut federal environmental protections and put the country at risk of falling further behind in our fight against climate change and environmental harm”.
A target in Trump’s executive order is California’s cap-and-trade system, one of the most ambitious and sophisticated in the world.
The program sets limits on the amount of emissions businesses can emit, and it doles out, or auctions, allowances that determine how many tons of emissions businesses can vent into the atmosphere each year. Over time, the state tightens the emissions cap, forcing polluters to either spend money to buy allowances, also called credits, or find ways to cut their emissions. Companies that emit less can sell their unused credits to those that exceed their allowances – or keep their credits to be used later on.
Related: Climate goals: inside California’s effort to overhaul its ambitious emissions plan
This, according to Trump, “punishes carbon use”.
His order reads:
Other States have taken different approaches in an effort to dictate national energy policy. California, for example, punishes carbon use by adopting impossible caps on the amount of carbon businesses may use, all but forcing businesses to pay large sums to “trade” carbon credits to meet California’s radical requirements.
Per Politico’s report, Trump’s executive order directs the attorney general to target state laws on carbon taxes and fees, as well as state laws that mention terms including “environmental justice” and “greenhouse gas emissions”.
The order directs Pam Bondi to “expeditiously take all appropriate action to stop the enforcement of State laws and continuation of civil actions … that the Attorney General determines to be illegal”.
Within 60 days, the order says, the attorney general will report on the actions taken against state climate laws and recommend other actions from the president or Congress.
Trump’s order argues that states have exceeded their constitutional authority by imposing energy policies that can be felt beyond their borders.
Democratic governors hit back at Trump order blocking state climate policies
In a joint statement, the Democratic governors of New York and New Mexico, Kathy Hochul and Michelle Lujan Grisham, who co-chair the US Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of 24 state governors committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, responded to the order targeting state authority.
The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority.
We are a nation of states – and laws – and we will not be deterred. We will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis that safeguard Americans’ fundamental right to clean air and water, create good-paying jobs, grow the clean energy economy, and make our future healthier and safer.
Politico reports that the executive order also targets the array of lawsuits that mostly Democratic-led states, cities and counties have brought against oil majors, seeking compensation for the ravages of climate change, such as rising tides and more frequent wildfires.
“These State laws and policies are fundamentally irreconcilable with my Administration’s objective to unleash American energy,” Trump said in the order. “They should not stand.”
As we’ve been reporting, last night Donald Trump threw the weight of the justice department behind his war on climate action, issuing an executive order that aims to block the enforcement of state laws passed to reduce the use of fossil fuels and combat the climate crisis. It came just hours after Trump issued orders to increase coal production.
In the sweeping order (“Protecting American energy from state overreach”), Trump instructed Pam Bondi, his attorney general, “to stop the enforcement of state laws” on climate change that his administration claims are unconstitutional, unenforceable or preempted by federal laws. The order said:
Many States have enacted, or are in the process of enacting, burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.
The order names California, New York and Vermont as specific targets, while also listing a broad range of state policies that the administration would seek to nullify, from cap-and-trade systems to permitting rules.
Trump brags world leaders are ‘kissing my ass’ to make trade deals amid tariff chaos
During a speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) president’s dinner last night, Donald Trump bragged that other countries were calling and “kissing my ass” to negotiate tariff rates just before they went into effect.
“They are,” he emphasized. “They are dying to make a deal.”
Trump made the remarks at the dinner, a key fundraising event for House Republicans, hours before his 104% tariffs came into effect for China, along with new tariffs imposed on 57 target countries, territories and blocs including rates of 20% on the EU, 26% on India and 49% on Cambodia.
As I reported here yesterday, the Trump administration has scheduled talks with South Korea and Japan, two close allies and major trading partners, and the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is due to visit next week.
In his speech, Trump went on to mock the world leaders initiating tariff talks with his administration, pretending to be them as he pitifully pleaded in a simpering voice:
Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, sir.
He of course did not mention countries like China and Canada that are imposing counter-tariffs on US goods.
With markets in a flux and amid fears of a global recession, Trump maintained that he was correct and everyone else was wrong about the danger of tariffs:
I know what the hell I’m doing.
He also took aim at rebel Republicans who are attempting to give Congress the ability to block his tariffs.
Then he went on to bring up Hannibal Lecter again and claim that he’s real, but we won’t get into that.
Anyway, CNN has the clip.
Jakub Krupa
EU countries set to approve first retaliation against US tariffs
The EU is set to finalise the first part of its response to Trump’s tariffs later today, with retaliatory levies against Trump’s original measures on steel and aluminium.
EU member states will vote on the final list on Wednesday, which targets €21bn of goods, down from €26bn originally foreseen, after talks with the EU’s 27 member states and many industry bodies. The list of potential targets facing mostly 25% retaliatory tariffs now ranges from almonds to yachts, diamonds and dental floss, soya beans and steel parts. But bourbon and wine have been dropped.
‘This is a great time to move companies to the US,’ says Trump as tariff war escalates
Donald Trump has said now is a “great” time for business owners to move their companies to the US as his escalating global tariff war rattles all sectors of the financial markets and investors dramatically sell off US government bonds.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, the president said companies coming into the US would face less red tape, “no environmental delays” and “zero tariffs”.
His post came just minutes after China announced it was retaliating by raising tariffs on American goods from 34% to 84%. Trump’s staggering 104% tariff on goods from China came into effect at midnight ET (noon China Standard Time) on Wednesday.
Here the full post:
This is a GREAT time to move your COMPANY into the United States of America, like Apple, and so many others, in record numbers, are doing. ZERO TARIFFS, and almost immediate Electrical/Energy hook ups and approvals. No Environmental Delays. DON’T WAIT, DO IT NOW!
US treasury secretary says he expects bond market to calm down
More from Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, who said this morning that he expected the bond market to come down after a savage selloff in US bonds sparked fears that foreign funds were fleeing US assets.
Speaking to Fox Business Network, Bessent said:
I think that it is an uncomfortable but normal deleveraging that’s going on in the bond market, and I expect that as we see the leverage come down, the risk managers tapping people on the shoulders, telling them to bring their books down, which is what happens every couple of years, as leverage builds up, then the market will come down.
US government bonds, traditionally seen as one of the world’s safest financial assets, are undergoing a dramatic sell-off as Donald Trump’s escalation of his tariff war with China sends panic through all sectors of the financial markets.
The falls suggest that as Trump’s fresh wave of tariffs on dozens of economies came into force, including 104% levies against Chinese goods, investors are beginning to lose confidence in the US as a cornerstone of the global economy.