November 24, 2025 — The environmental rollbacks came one after the next this week, potentially affecting everything from the survival of rare whales to the health of the Hudson River.
On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed to strip federal protections from millions of acres of wetlands and streams, narrowing the reach of the Clean Water Act.
On Wednesday, federal wildlife agencies announced changes to the Endangered Species Act that could make it harder to rescue endangered species from the brink of extinction.
And on Thursday, the Interior Department moved to allow new oil and gas drilling across nearly 1.3 billion acres of U.S. coastal waters, including a remote region in the high Arctic where drilling has never before taken place.
If the Trump administration’s proposals are finalized and upheld in court, they could reshape U.S. environmental policy for years to come, environmental lawyers and activists said.
“This was the week from hell for environmental policy in the United States,” said Pat Parenteau, a professor emeritus and senior fellow for climate policy at Vermont Law and Graduate School. “Unless stopped by the courts, each of these proposed rollbacks will do irreparable harm to the nation’s water quality, endangered species and marine ecosystems.”
The quick pace of these proposals was notable, even for an administration that has enacted Mr. Trump’s agenda at breakneck speed.
While the administration was working in Washington to dismantle environmental protections, 3,300 miles to the south, negotiators from nearly 200 nations were trying to improve the planet’s health at the United Nations climate summit in Brazil.