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Trump Cancels Green Loans

January 23, 2026 at 12:17 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Trump administration is cancelling $30 billion in green loans and revising another $53 billion, NewsNation reports.

Filed Under: Environment

How Wall Street Turned Its Back on Climate Change

January 17, 2026 at 10:09 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Six years after the financial industry pledged to use trillions to fight climate change and reshape finance, its efforts have largely collapsed,” the New York Times reports.

Filed Under: Environment

U.S. Adds Fuel to a Heating Planet

January 13, 2026 at 11:14 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“By pulling the United States out of the main international climate treaty, seizing Venezuelan crude oil and using government power to resuscitate the domestic coal industry while choking off clean energy, the Trump administration is not just ignoring climate change, it is likely making the problem worse,” the New York Times reports.

In recent days Trump has slammed the door on every possible avenue of global cooperation on the environment. At the same time, it is sending the message that it wants the world to be awash in fossil fuels sold by America, no matter the consequences.”

Filed Under: Environment

EPA to Stop Considering Lives Saved

January 12, 2026 at 1:19 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “Under President Trump, the EPA plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone, when regulating industry.”

“It’s a seismic shift that runs counter to the EPA’s mission statement, which says the agency’s core responsibility is to protect human health and the environment.”

Filed Under: Environment

Trump Pulls Out of Global Climate Treaty

January 7, 2026 at 7:40 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“President Trump said on Wednesday that the United States would withdraw from the bedrock international agreement that forms the basis for countries to rein in climate change,” the New York Times reports.

“The agreement, which has been in place for 34 years, counts all of the other nations of the world as members.”

Filed Under: Environment

Trump Moves to Reshape U.S. Environmental Policy

November 23, 2025 at 4:05 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “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…”

“If the Trump administration’s proposals [to narrow the Clean Water Act, change the Endangered Species Act and expand offshore oil and gas drilling] are finalized and upheld in court, they could reshape U.S. environmental policy for years to come, environmental lawyers and activists said.”

Filed Under: Environment

Lula Hopes U.S. Will Rejoin Climate Fight

November 20, 2025 at 10:37 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called late Wednesday for a global winding-down of fossil fuels — and said he hoped to someday get the U.S. behind it,” Politico reports.

Said Lula: “We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If fossil fuels emit too much, we must begin thinking about how to live without them.”

He said he hoped “one day to convince the president of the United States that the climate crisis is serious, that green development is necessary.”

Filed Under: Environment

Newsom in the Spotlight at the Climate Conference

November 12, 2025 at 7:38 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California cast himself as the “stable and reliable” American partner to the world, called a reported White House proposal to open offshore drilling in the waters off California “disgraceful” and urged his fellow Democrats to recast climate change as a “cost of living issue,” the New York Times reports.

Filed Under: 2028 Campaign, Environment

Trump Opens Pristine Alaska Wilderness to Drilling

October 23, 2025 at 5:18 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The Trump administration on Thursday announced a plan to allow oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest remaining tracts of pristine wilderness in the United States,” the New York Times reports.

“The decision was the latest twist in a long-running fight over the fate of the refuge’s coastal plain, an unspoiled expanse of 1.56 million acres that is believed to sit atop billions of barrels of oil but is also a critical habitat for polar bears, caribou, migratory birds and other wildlife.”

Filed Under: Environment

Pentagon Retreats from Climate Fight

October 14, 2025 at 2:57 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Floodlight News: “For decades, the Pentagon viewed climate change as a national security threat — not for environmental reasons, but because it undermined operations and readiness… Now the Trump administration is dismantling that approach. Pentagon leaders have cut climate research funding and abandoned adaptation plans.”

Said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: “The Department of Defense does not do climate change crap.”

Filed Under: Environment

Democrats Must Drop ‘Planetary Emergency’ Talk

September 24, 2025 at 8:48 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) said that his party needed to change the way it talked about climate change if Democrats hoped to win over new voters, the New York Times reports.

Said Schatz: “You could talk about the planetary emergency and mitigation and adaptation, and you could throw in some environmental justice rhetoric, and by the time you’re done talking, people think you don’t care about them.”

Instead, he said, policymakers who care about climate change need to be “recapturing momentum with regular people who are watching their utility bills spike like a hockey stick.”

Filed Under: Environment

China Pledges to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

September 24, 2025 at 4:55 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“China, the world’s largest carbon polluter, announced at the United Nations on Wednesday that it intended to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 7 percent to 10 percent over the next 10 years, the first time Beijing has made such a strong commitment to halt global warming,” the New York Times reports.

Chinese president Xi Jinping made the announcement by video, saying: “Green and low carbon transition is the trend of our time.”

In an apparent reference to the United States, Xi added: “Some countries are against it.”

Filed Under: Environment

Pentagon Delays Cleanup of ‘Forever Chemicals’

September 23, 2025 at 8:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The Department of Defense has quietly delayed its cleanup of harmful ‘forever chemicals’ at nearly 140 military installations across the country,” the New York Times reports.

“The Pentagon has been one of the most intensive users of these chemicals, which are also known as PFAS and are a key ingredient in firefighting foam. For decades, crews at U.S. military bases would train to battle flames by lighting jet-fuel fires, then putting them out with large amounts of foam, which would leach into the soil and groundwater.”

Filed Under: Environment

Green Movement at a Crossroads

September 22, 2025 at 12:55 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Green groups stunned by the Trump administration’s rapid-fire dismantling of their environmental victories are still debating how to fight back — and torn between two contrasting strategies,” Politico reports.

“One set of activists is urging the environmental movement to join a broader anti-billionaire campaign led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), which accuses the Trump administration of attacking democracy to benefit the very wealthiest Americans.”

“Others want to double down on the Biden administration’s portrayal of climate action as a pocketbook issue — contending that Republican attacks on investments in electric vehicles, wind farms and other clean energy technologies will wipe out jobs and burden consumers with higher costs.”

Filed Under: Environment

The Whole World Has Soured on Climate Politics

September 16, 2025 at 10:28 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “The most conspicuous retreat, of course, has been the United States under President Trump, who first announced his intention to withdraw from Paris way back in 2017 with a ceremony in the Rose Garden. Trump has celebrated his return to office by utterly dismantling his predecessor’s signature climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, and vowing to stop all approvals for new renewable projects (not to mention paving over that same garden). But this is not just a story about Trump. When Paris was forged, the United States was a trivial exporter of natural gas, and it was still illegal to ship American oil abroad. Even before Trump’s second inauguration, the country had become the world’s largest producer and exporter of refined oil and liquid natural gas.”

“And neither is it a story particular to America. The retreat from climate politics has been widespread, even in the midst of a global green-energy boom. From 2019 to 2021, governments around the world added more than 300 climate-adaptation and mitigation policies each year, according to the energy analyst Nat Bullard. In 2023, the number dropped under 200. In 2024, it was only 50 or so. In many places — like in South America and in Europe — existing laws have already been weakened or are under pressure from shifting political coalitions now pushing to undermine them.”

Filed Under: Environment

Appeals Court Allows Trump to Cut Climate Grants

September 2, 2025 at 2:19 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A federal appeals court is allowing the Trump administration to terminate $16 billion in grants awarded by the Biden administration to combat greenhouse gas emissions,” ABC News reports.

Filed Under: Environment

Trump Fires EPA Employees Over Dissent Letter

August 29, 2025 at 6:35 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The Trump administration has fired at least seven Environmental Protection Agency employees for signing a letter nearly two months ago criticizing the agency’s leadership,” the Washington Post reports.

“The move to terminate several staffers marks an escalation in the administration’s effort to clamp down on dissent within the federal bureaucracy.”

Filed Under: Environment

Environmental Groups Face ‘Generational’ Setbacks 

August 16, 2025 at 11:07 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“In the Biden administration, the American environmental movement reached what many of its supporters considered an apex. Congress passed the largest ever federal law to combat climate change. Coal-burning power plants were shutting down. Hundreds of billions of dollars of federal investment in renewable energy, batteries and electric vehicles was beginning to flow,” the New York Times reports.

“But in just months, President Trump has attacked much of that work.”

“The Biden-era climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, is in tatters. The White House is trying to revive coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, while boosting oil and gas and hindering solar and wind power. And it is weakening or trying to scrap environmental policies and regulations, some dating to 1970.”

“The abrupt reversal in fortunes has led to a moment of crisis for the environmental community.”

Filed Under: Environment

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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