Elizabeth Kolbert

2 months ago | newyorker.com | Elizabeth Kolbert

The first person to head the Environmental Protection Agency, which was created by President Richard Nixon, in late 1970, was an up-and-coming Republican politician named William Ruckelshaus. Ruckelshaus, known to his friends as Ruck, came from Indiana, where, during a single term in the state’s House of Representatives, he had managed to get elected majority leader. On being chosen to lead the E.P.A., he moved quickly to establish the new agency’s credibility.

2 months ago | motherjones.com | Elizabeth Kolbert

This story was originally published by Yale e360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In the first six weeks of the new Trump administration, it’s become clear that the president intends to undo not just Joe Biden’s environmental legacy, but an entire generation’s worth of action on climate change. The administration has announced it is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.

Mar 3, 2025 | e360.yale.edu | Elizabeth Kolbert

In the first six weeks of the new Trump administration, it’s become clear that the president intends to undo not just Joe Biden’s environmental legacy, but an entire generation’s worth of action on climate change. The administration has announced it is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. It has frozen Inflation Reduction Act grants, stopped issuing permits for offshore wind development, and declared an “energy emergency” to boost fossil fuel production.

Mar 3, 2025 | e360.yale.edu | Elizabeth Kolbert

The Inflation Reduction Act [the Biden administration’s signature climate law] represented the first significant act by the U.S. Congress to deal with climate science. It was a far from perfect bill, but powerful in many ways. So powerful that the fossil fuel industry needed to do what it could to shut it down and to shut down the energy transition to the extent that it could.

Feb 11, 2025 | newyorker.com | Elizabeth Kolbert

When Donald Trump was inaugurated for the first time, in January, 2017, Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law launched the Climate Deregulation Tracker. Four years and a hundred and seventy-six entries later, when Joe Biden took office, the tool was renamed the Climate Reregulation Tracker. Last month, the tool was renamed again: it’s now the Climate Backtracker.