Short Wave - Will Trump Unleash Energy Dominance Or Damage?

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

The Trump administration is rewriting policies and reducing funding for multiple agencies that handle climate change, including NOAA, EPA and FEMA. We asked NPR reporters Lauren Sommer and Alejandra Borunda what that the implications of that are — and who the changes will affect.Want to hear more ways research is being impacted by the new administration? Email us at [e-mail] to let us know — and we may cover your idea in a future episode!Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Since he took office, President Trump has made sweeping changes to federal agencies that work on climate change. On April 8th of this year, he issued several new executive orders, lifting regulations on fossil fuels, allowing new coal projects on federal land, and ending what he calls, quote, woke policies that support renewable energy. Every day under the Trump administration, We will continue to lower costs for American families, create jobs for American workers, and very importantly unlock unlimited amounts of affordable American energy, including beautiful, clean coal. He has slashed the budgets and shifted the directives of key government agencies,

especially when it comes to funding research, regulating pollution, and responding to climate-related disasters. And again, Trump says this is all in service of everyday Americans. But what will be the impact of Trump's actions on those everyday Americans in the future? For answers, we brought in NPR climate reporters Alejandra Burunda and Lauren Summer. What do you both think? Yeah, so if you're someone who lives in a coastal community that's prone to hurricanes, or honestly, if you just want to check the weather forecast,

then the changes that NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, could affect you. Or maybe you're in one of the thousands of communities that are trying to prepare for disasters, you know, like hurricanes or wildfires, and you applied for federal funding, that's completely changing too. So today we're going to recap these budget cuts and policy changes, focusing on three government agencies that deal with climate and the environment, the EPA, NOAA and FEMA, with an eye towards their real world impacts on the Americans that President Trump says he wants to support. I'm Emily Kwong and you're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.

Alejandra, we're going to start with the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, historically, this agency has done a lot. It's been focused on protecting the environment and public health. It has cleaned up hazardous waste, banned certain pesticides, curbed air and water pollution. It does seem, though, like those types of actions are no longer the primary goal. Yeah, well, so the EPA announced recently that it actually wants to do two things at once now. Protect health, yes. And also, quote unquote, revitalize the American.

economy. Its new administrator is named Lee Zeldin, and he rolled out a vision that's really focused on deregulation, which is in line with the Trump administration's goals more broadly. Yeah, deregulation, it often looks like loosening federal restrictions so businesses can operate more freely. Yeah, exactly. And Zeldon has said explicitly that the agency's goal now is to help fulfill Trump's efforts to, quote unquote, unleash American energy. And he says loosening regulations will ease the burden on businesses, which will eventually make it cheaper for Americans to do things like buy new cars or heat their homes. Okay.

Yeah, but critics worry that there will be real impacts on people's health from rolling back or weakening regulations that protect air and water. Take the Clean Air Act, for example. After its passage and in the past couple of decades, the concentration of major air has dropped by about 80%. And EPA's own analyses show that the cleaner air prevents about 2.5 million asthma attacks every year. Wow. The science is super clear that loosening the rules would end up causing more people to get sick or even die early. Are there any other changes coming down in the pike that might

affect the EPA's work? Totally. So the big conversation right now is about employment cuts coming to EPA. In early May, Zeldin said the plan is to reduce the agency to Reagan-era levels of employment, which would mean cutting thousands of employees. And right now, it seems like a lot of those cuts would target an EPA branch called the Office of Research and Development, or ORD. It's where most of the science happens. Like when a state asks the EPA to figure out of chemicals, it's unsafe, or they want to do those assessments that go into the air pollution rules that get updated every few years, but they're basically on the chopping block now.

If they're on the chopping block, what would that mean about the science they've done? Like, would the work just go away and whatever the current science says is how it will stay? Maybe there's really a lot of unknowns right now. We'll start to know more when the cuts start to come in the next few weeks. Yeah. The Trump administration leaders, though, have said that they basically want the office dismantled. These cuts to the EPA are not the only indicator of a shift in the Trump administration's attitude towards climate research. Lauren, there's also been cuts at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Remind all of us, what has NOAA historically done? Yeah. So if you checked the weather on your phone this morning, You interacted with NOAA. These are a scientist that make the weather forecasts. They track hurricanes and tornadoes and floods and droughts. They help warn people about those things. They make nautical charts to keep ships from running aground. They track space weather to make sure commercial flights are safe. They manage fisheries. They protect species like whales and corals. I could keep going. They do a lot.

Yeah, I pretty much consulted NOAA every day as a member station reporter in Alaska. It's where we got all of our marine forecasts to read on air so people didn't go out on the water. when conditions weren't safe. That's actually really cool. Noah has also historically done a lot of research on weather, on fisheries, on climate change, all those things that Lauren just listed. And the administration is trying to cut that climate work basically in its entirety. So what is President Trump's administration planning to shift within Noah? Yeah. So staffing is definitely one thing. Hundreds of people have been fired so far. We know that's already affecting weather forecasting in some parts of the country. It's delayed the open. of some fishing seasons, which is a big deal for coastal communities, there are plans to essentially eliminate one of the research wings, you know, along with other climate work across the agency. And there are more budget cuts on the way. So a draft proposal from the White House for 2026 would reduce Noah's current budget by more than 25%. Okay, so people have been cut and the budget is going to be cut. What will the impact be there? Yeah, again, there's still a lot of unknowns, but the proposed budgets for both this year and next year would take direct

aim at Noah's climate work and a lot of its research. And like for the EPA, the proposal wants to basically dismantle that research arm of the agency, which here is called OAR, which stands for oceanic and atmospheric research. Craig McLean led that research wing for years, and he says cuts of this magnitude would take us back to the 1950s in scientific capability. The budget The proposal also slashes support for some of NOAA's next generation satellites, which provide the basis for a lot of the weather and climate forecasting you see. And it would shrink funding for fisheries, even maybe move a lot of that work to another agency entirely. Oh, wow. Yeah. So suffice it to say there's a lot of concern out there from experts and scientists and people who used to work at the agency. And they mostly say, sure, there are totally ways to make the agency more efficient. But this is not it. Going back to what you said earlier about how if you checked the weather today, you did interact with NOAA, how will this affect the accuracy of weather forecasts in the future? Yeah. So the budget proposal would keep funding even for the National Weather Service, right? That's the weather forecasting part. But, you know, in practice, they've been hit hard already because of those people that have been fired. And some scientists think they're already seeing weather forecasts get less accurate. Right. The money can be there, but if there aren't people to do the science, it kind of falls apart.

Exactly. And like people are worried about this because there has been some pretty intense weather across the country already recently. And we haven't even really hit heat season, hurricane season, wildfire season. There's a lot coming down the pike. Speaking of those, weather disasters like flooding or storms or wildfires are getting worse. And a lot of the funding to prepare for those disasters comes from the federal government through FEMA. That's the last agency we're going to talk about today. What is the funding picture there? Yeah. So there's a lot of funding that the federal. government provides for preparing for disasters, a lot. FEMA has awarded more than four and a half billion dollars since 2020 to help communities prepare. You know, these are grants. They've already told communities that they're getting. They're on the way. But now they've been canceled. Okay. So what were these grants for? Okay. Yeah. Here's an example. So there's this tiny community of D. Pew, Illinois. They have a big problem, which is when it rains a lot, it causes flooding. And it

floods their sewage treatment plan. It gets inundated with water. And that means people may not be able to flush their toilets. Daniel Hoffert, the village president of Dupu, told me about it. You know, once it would flood into the system, it would, you know, actually shut down the whole sewage treatment plant. And then we would be in a major hurt. Yeah, you need that sewage to run. Exactly. Because if the plant isn't working, the sewage actually backs up in the pipes. It even spills into the basements of people's houses. And in past storms, they've had more than 100 houses that were affected. Fixing it means moving the wastewater treatment plant to higher ground. And that's expensive, you know, $25 million. And Hofford says it would take them decades to collect enough

tax revenue because, you know, only about 1,500 people live there. So he applied to FEMA for this program specifically for projects that prevent disaster damage. Interesting, because a lot of people think of FEMA as the agency that pays after a disaster hits, but this sounds like preventative support almost. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the idea is you pay a little bit now, so you don't have to pay a lot more later. And studies show that it really is cheaper to prepare infrastructure for disasters instead of just paying to rebuild it after a disaster hits. So this grant program, it's called brick, building resilient infrastructure and communities. It was actually started during Trump's

first administration. And it kind of marked this big shift that disaster. experts have been pushing for for decades. But now, you know, it's being canceled. So what will that mean for the community of DePue? Yeah. So they had been told the grant was already awarded to them. They've been working on it. They've been planning and preparing for years. And Hoffert was actually expecting the money this year. And then he heard it was canceled. It was probably within a month or two of being okay. So that's really, it's really harsh. So is the wastewater treatment plant just not going to be relocated? Next time it floods and this sewage back, backup happens, they just can't do anything about it?

Yeah, I mean, Hoffert says they're looking for any other option at this point, but there just aren't a lot of sources for funding like that. The federal government really has been key for rural communities like his. What is the Trump administration saying about why these grants have been canceled? So FEMA put out a statement saying the program is canceled because it's ineffective and part of an effort to root out waste and fraud. And, you know, Hoffert takes issue with that. I don't think they know what waste is.

I don't think they know what fraud is. you know, or anything like that. None of this, to me, is wasteful and fraud. And his community is definitely not alone. You know, there are many local governments and tribes that were told they had grants. They were on the way. And that's for things like, you know, tornado shelters and schools and preparing communities for wildfires. And this is, of course, on the preparation side, what about FEMA's ability to respond after a disaster happens? Yeah, there's a lot of concern about that as well, because FEMA needs a lot of people to respond when disasters hit. The agency has already lost more than 200 people. It's expected to lose hundreds

more with the Trump administration's efforts to shrink the agency. And Trump has said he maybe wants FEMA to go away completely. And that could affect how many people will be available, you know, when those hurricanes and wildfires hit this summer. Yeah. And of course, just going back to the Trump administration's statements about all of this, a lot of these changes are being made in the name of decreasing the cost of living. Alejandra and Lauren, I'd love to hear from both of you. Do you think everyday Americans will see their livelihoods improve with changes like these to the EPA, NOAA and FEMA? Gosh, what a question, Emily. I think it's going to be really interesting to see how long it takes for some of the changes in these agencies to trickle out into things that people actually experience in their everyday lives. And it's already starting for some. Like Lauren said earlier, there were fisheries seasons that were delayed opening this year. And that has a huge deal for the coastal communities that rely on them.

As for the rest of it, I think we're all just kind of waiting to see. Yeah. And I think a lot of this is a question of who pays, right? Because we know climate disasters are getting worse. They're going to continue to get worse. If we're not studying it, if we're not preparing for it, those are costs that people will face in some way. And so it's a question of whether the federal government is there to support that or whether it's states and local. communities that are going to be left kind of paying for that in the end.

Who will pay for the reality of climate change? That is Lauren Summer and Alejandra Burunda, both correspondents on NPR's Climate Desk. Thank you so much for coming on. Shortwave. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thanks for having us. This episode was produced by Hannah Chin and edited by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Robert Rodriguez was the audio engineer.

Beth Donovan is our senior director and Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of podcasting strategy. I'm Emily Kwong. Thank you for listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.