Today, January 20, 2021, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law launched the Climate Reregulation Tracker to follow the Biden administration’s progress in undoing the Trump administration’s assault on climate change poli
cy. Four years ago today—on the last Inauguration Day—the Sabin Center launched the Climate Deregulation Tracker, the first of what would become numerous online trackers, news reports, academic analyses, and other resources designed to spotlight the Trump administration’s use and abuse of executive authority to pursue its agenda to cut back on government regulations and to promote the extraction and use of fossil fuels. Since its launch, the Climate Deregulation Tracker has logged over 150 executive branch actions that fit the bill. Last summer the Sabin Center issued a report titled Climate Reregulation in a Biden Administration to imagine the steps then-candidates Biden and Harris could take to reverse course if they won the election.
Today we begin tracking those steps. The Climate Reregulation Tracker will follow the Biden administration’s work reinstating and strengthening the regulations, guidance, international commitments, technical documents, and other actions to address climate change that the Trump administration rolled back or eliminated in the past four years. Those efforts will also be captured in our Climate Regulation Database, which currently includes actions that the executive branch has taken under Presidents Obama and Trump. President Biden’s pledge to prioritize climate change promises to usher in a new era of climate governance.
