What a Donald Trump presidency means for Michigan’s environment

• The Trump White House will starkly differ from the Biden White House on environmental issues, experts told Bridge Michigan
• Expect rollbacks of climate and pollution regulations and EV subsidies, and new emphasis on oil and gas
• One area of agreement: Both men support nuclear power

Former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House is expected to cause a dramatic shift in federal environmental policy with significant implications for Michigan.

The former and now future president, a climate denier who spent his first term in office rolling back environmental rules, is expected to quickly reverse President Joe Biden’s efforts to rein in climate change and air and water pollution, instead embracing a pro-fossil fuel, anti-regulation agenda.

Trump contends government climate and pollution regulations are driving up the cost of goods and discouraging business growth, while more fossil fuel extraction would lower energy costs.

During his victory speech Wednesday, he called oil and gas “liquid gold” and said he has instructed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer expected to play a role in the Trump administration, to “help make America healthy again” but “stay away from the liquid gold.”

Like Biden’s environmental policies, Trump’s anticipated rollbacks will have deep significance in Michigan, a state with abundant freshwater and deep ties to automakers, chemical producers and other industries that are both major employers and major sources of pollution and carbon emissions.

He has vowed to cut staff in environmental agencies, loosen emissions limits that are steering automakers toward electric vehicles, “terminate” a climate spending program that has funneled billions of dollars toward Michigan, favor the oil and gas sector in ways that could influence the Line 5 pipeline fight, and roll back pollution rules, potentially including those governing lead and PFAS.

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“Trump is a pretty standard deregulation Republican,” said Charlotte Jameson, chief policy officer for the Michigan Environmental Council. “So I expect an effort to unwind a lot of the Biden-era rules to the extent that they haven't already been unwound by the Supreme Court.”

Many details remain unclear, including who Trump will appoint to lead key federal environmental agencies. But he will benefit from Republican majorities in the US Senate and potentially House, and a conservative Supreme Court majority that has issued recent rulings limiting government regulatory power.

“I do expect them to be fairly assertive in working to understand in the early days of the administration, what regulations pose a challenge to the business community, and how can we maybe rethink that,” said Mike Alaimo, environmental and energy affairs director for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

On most environmental issues, experts, environmentalists and industry officials told Bridge Michigan they expect Trump to be the polar opposite of his predecessor. 

But the two administrations may align in one key way: Both Biden and Trump have embraced nuclear energy, prompting experts to conclude that the effort to restart Michigan’s Palisades nuclear plant will continue apace.

Electric vehicles

Trump has long been a critic of EVs, describing them on the campaign trail as job killers that represent a “transition to hell.”

But his rhetoric has softened somewhat since forging a political alliance with Tesla owner Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, whose EV company is heavily subsidized by US taxpayers.

“I’m for electric cars,” Trump said in August. “I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly.”

Still, experts and interest groups told Bridge Michigan they expect Trump to fulfill his promise to reverse Biden-era vehicle emission standards, which he has often mischaracterized as an EV “mandate.”

Those standards don’t force automakers to build EVs. But they require automakers to cut light-duty vehicle emissions nearly in half by 2032, a target that automakers plan to meet with a mix of gasoline-powered, hybrid and electric vehicles.

Biden has also encouraged a switch to EVs by offering tax credits for EV purchases and financial incentives for automakers to manufacture them.

“It’s eminently likely, especially with the shifts in Congress, that the electric vehicle tax credits could be in the crosshairs,” said Barry Rabe, a University of Michigan political scientist who studies the politics behind environmental policy.

Groups representing automakers and the broader business community have distanced themselves from Trump’s past demonization of EVs, contending that government support is crucial to US automakers’ survival as the global market shifts away from gasoline-powered cars.

“It’s going to be important that the federal government continues to support investment in electrification,” said Alaimo, of the Michigan Chamber. “It is the future of the automotive industry. We need to be conscious of that.”

That said, Alaimo said government support could take the form of “regulatory efficiency” efforts as opposed to emissions rules and monetary incentives.

Climate change

Beyond EVs, Trump is expected to de-prioritize green energy in favor of policies that support the fossil fuel industry.

During his campaign, Trump falsely called climate change a “big hoax” while referring to the Inflation Reduction Act — a federal climate and health spending law passed along party lines in 2022 — as a “green new scam.”

He has promised to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement (a second time), rescind unspent climate funds from the IRA and rescind federal emissions standards applying to automobiles and power plants.

“I think it will be an all-out effort to restrict or even eviscerate what's being proposed in the Biden administration,” said Rabe.

A recent report from the United Nations warned that under current world policies, there is “virtually no chance” of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius — a target meant to avoid dangerous climate tipping points.

Trump’s proposed policies would further lengthen the odds, increasing US emissions by billions of tons annually, according to an analysis from Carbon Brief.

Potential impacts in Michigan range from longer summers and shorter (perhaps snowless) winters, loss of native fish, wildlife and forests, more damaging storms and new diseases.

In an indicator of the business community’s expectations for the Trump administration, share prices for wind and solar companies tanked after Election Day, while oil stocks surged.

Whether Trump is willing and able to execute his promised climate rollbacks remains to be seen. For example, any attempt to repeal or rescind funds from the IRA would face bipartisan resistance, given that many IRA investments have flowed to red states.

But Rabe said he expects a more tailored paring back of the law.

“I think you would see more like what we saw with the Affordable Care Act, where you would take apart portions or chunks of it and really focus on those provisions that the president or the Republican Congress do not like,” he said.

Michigan businesses have been major recipients of IRA funds, from $500 million to help General Motors retool a Lansing factory for EV production, to $134 million in tax credits that have helped 117,000 Michigan residents make home energy upgrades.

Alaimo said the Chamber will be informing lawmakers that “we don't want to overturn the apple cart” on those investments.

If Trump rescinds federal power plant emissions rules, Michigan utilities’ decarbonization efforts will continue. That’s because a suite of state laws passed last year require utilities to achieve 100% clean energy by 2040.

However, Rabe said, any loss of federal dollars to support the energy transition could potentially slow its pace.

Great Lakes issues

During his first term in office, Trump repeatedly proposed deep cuts to the then-$300 million budget for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a program that cleans up industrial pollution in lakes and rivers.

The effort failed to make it through Congress amid outcry from bipartisan Great Lakes lawmakers. Onlookers said they don’t expect Trump to target the initiative this time around.

But Trump is expected to roll back a host of federal water pollution limits, as he did during his first term.

Items vulnerable to reversal include recently passed PFAS and lead regulations, and the “Waters of the United States” rule that defines which waterways are subject to the Clean Water Act.

The PFAS rules in particular have been unpopular with industry, which now faces costs to install pollution controls and clean up existing contamination.

Passed amid growing concern over widespread contamination from the cancer-causing “forever chemicals,” the rules limit allowable amounts of PFAS in drinking water, and classify several PFAS compounds as “hazardous substances” under the federal Superfund law. 

Jason Hayes, energy and environmental policy director for the conservative think tank Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said he doesn’t expect an immediate reversal of those rules.

“They’re going to get in and talk to the people that are actually dealing with (PFAS chemicals) before we see anything changing,” Hayes said.

What would happen if they’re eventually revoked? Michigan’s own, less-stringent limits on PFAS would still apply — unless chemical giant 3M wins its pending lawsuit to overturn the rules. The Michigan Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case next Wednesday.

While the federal government allows states to craft their own water quality standards if they feel federal rules are too weak, Michigan lawmakers have stripped state environmental regulators of that authority.

Jameson, of the Michigan Environmental Council, said restoring the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy’s water-quality rulemaking authority is “top of the agenda” for environmentalists in the state Legislature’s lame duck session.

Line 5

For years, the fate of Michigan’s aging Line 5 petroleum pipeline has been a subject of fierce debate.

Amid concerns that the pipeline could rupture in the open water of the Straits of Mackinac, environmental groups are pushing to shut it down, while pipeline owner Enbridge is pursuing a plan to move Line 5 into a concrete tunnel beneath the lakebed.

It’s a fight marked by a protracted legal battle between Attorney General Dana Nessel and Enbridge, simmering tensions with the Canadian government over a treaty governing cross-border pipelines, and a prolonged permitting process to decide whether Enbridge can build the tunnel.

Amid the battle, environmentalists have at times urged Biden to lend his support for a shutdown — something he has declined to do. 

Trump, likewise, has said nothing publicly about the pipeline. But he has supported building new pipelines and vowed to “drill, baby, drill” for oil and gas. That leads onlookers to conclude that his administration will favor the pipeline’s continued existence.

There are a number of ways a Trump administration could influence the debate, including by pushing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to speed up tunnel permitting.

But both Line 5 proponents and foes said they expect the issue to fall low on the incoming administration’s immediate priority list.

“I think the pathway is still just in the courts,” said Jameson. 

Nuclear energy

On the topic of nuclear energy, Trump’s philosophy may not differ much from Biden’s.

Trump’s campaign website advocates for a “clear and expedient pathway for advanced, micro and modular reactors to reach commercialization.”

Biden, likewise, has prioritized nuclear power, using subsidies and other policies to keep existing plants online and build new ones. 

Michigan’s shuttered Palisades nuclear plant has benefitted, with more than $3 billion in subsidies so far committed to repowering the plant.

During a March visit to Palisades, Energy Secretary and former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm said the U.S. needs to triple its nuclear energy supply in order to ditch greenhouse gas-emitting power sources by midcentury.

Trump has not specified how he would support nuclear power, but experts said they don’t expect him to abandon the Biden-era strategy of subsidizing the industry.

Beyond financial support, the Trump administration’s efforts to curb environmental regulations could speed up the process of approving new nuclear plants.