The White House unleashed the latest salvo in its war against climate regulations via several executive orders last week.
The orders direct agencies to sunset or repeal regulations, as well as direct the Department of Justice to go after state climate laws. It could ensnare laws affecting the waste industry, including those seeking to address landfill methane emissions.
Critics say the directives are the latest “shortcuts” the Trump administration is taking to undo federal regulations despite likely court challenges.
“They're stirring up a recipe of regulatory chaos that is going to be as bad for regulated industry as it is for public health, because there will be no clarity on what rules industry needs to follow in the coming years,” said Jeremy Symons, a senior advisor at the Environmental Protection Network.
The orders follow actions already taken in 2025 by President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to target several foundational climate regulations and programs. The agency is revisiting a core decision that underpins its climate rules while shutting down environmental justice monitoring tools and slow-walking industrial emissions reporting.
One of Trump’s latest orders directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to halt the enforcement of state-level laws that address issues such as climate change and environmental justice.
In a statement, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said the agency would continue with its rulemaking process on its own landfill emissions law. The California Air Resources Board, which enforces the state’s short-lived climate pollutant rule affecting organics management and is developing a new landfill methane regulation, did not respond to a request for comment.
“They want to force their will on states who are actually trying to protect their citizens from toxic pollution and climate change,” Symons said.
The executive order also takes aim at so-called climate Superfund laws, which seek to hold polluters financially responsible for damages from the greenhouse gases they pollute. It directs the attorney general to identify any state law “purporting to address ‘climate change’ or involving ‘environmental, social, and governance’ initiatives, ‘environmental justice,’ carbon or ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions, and funds to collect carbon penalties or carbon taxes.” The attorney general would then take action to stop the enforcement of such laws.
The order has already received pushback from the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of states dedicated to continuing action on climate change.
“The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority. We are a nation of states — and laws — and we will not be deterred,” alliance co-chairs New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement.
More regulatory rollbacks
Trump's “Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting” executive order seeks to inject sunset dates into regulations across the federal government. The order directs the EPA administrator and Secretary of the Army, reporting for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to come up with their own lists of statutes subject to the order within 30 days.
Agencies have until Sept. 30 to insert a “conditional sunset date” into all affected regulations. On that date, which can be up to five years in the future, the regulations would no longer be in effect. Agencies can periodically amend or update the rule to extend their sunset dates.
Finally, the Trump administration is directing agencies to repeal certain regulations without the opportunity for public comment. The move follows a February executive order that gave agencies 60 days to “identify unlawful and potentially unlawful regulations” that agency heads decide run counter to recent Supreme Court decisions. That includes cases like Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned the “Chevron doctrine,” giving agencies latitude to interpret federal statutes, and Sackett v. EPA, which tightened language regarding “waters of the United States.”
Agencies have already made policy changes in the wake of those decisions. In particular, the Biden administration tweaked its definition of waters of the United States after the Sackett decision, and Zeldin has previously said the agency would revisit it again.
Symons said the administration’s moves will likely be challenged by lawsuits, injecting uncertainty into a host of regulated proceedings that the solid waste and recycling industry has come to expect.
“I've heard regulated industries tell me the thing they hate more than anything else is the pendulum swings ... that's what's being created here,” Symons said.
The 60-day review period for repealing regulations ends in the next week. After that, agencies will release short statements on repealed regulations. They will also have 30 additional days to tell the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs why they chose not to repeal certain regulations that might have fallen within the scope of the order.
