We have the right to know how the government uses our tax dollars. We have a right to transparency from our leaders. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guarantees these rights. But with Trump’s slapdash schemes to destabilize our government and gut long-standing protections, he’s flouting FOIA requirements to keep us in the dark. We refuse to let him get away with it.

In July, we filed a lawsuit against Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), demanding records related to agency reorganizations and firings and plans to axe more environmental protections. We’re specifically pursuing records related to plans to roll back the “greenhouse gas endangerment finding,” foundational to many federal climate regulations. 

FOIA requires that federal agencies make records available to the public by certain deadlines. It’s intended to ensure an informed citizenry; the Supreme Court called FOIA “vital to the functioning of a democratic society.”

Given this administration’s hostility toward transparency and democracy, it’s no surprise that OMB hasn’t complied with the law’s disclosure requirements. Now, after failure upon failure to respond to our requests for information, we’re taking OMB to court.

Our lawsuit is critical to holding this lawless administration accountable. The records we’re demanding are blueprints for how it plans to work for polluters, not everyday people. They detail how the administration plans to enrich industry bigwigs by rolling back health and safety regulations and dismantling the systems to enforce environmental laws.

By making them public, we’ll be even better prepared to defend our hard-won victories for people and the environment.

Dismantling Agencies to Bring Project 2025 to Life

Trump’s attacks on government agencies and their employees directly endanger our food, water, and climate. He’s firing civil servants who carry out important environmental safeguards. This reduces our ability to regulate polluters, keep our food safe, keep our air and water clean, and mitigate climate change. His administration has ordered agencies to create major restructuring plans to facilitate these drastic cuts.

Although we don’t know the exact number, around 300,000 federal workers will have left government by the end of 2025 through layoffs, buyouts, or other planned reductions. Many of these reductions have already occurred through the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” with more to come. Agencies that protect our food and water, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the USDA, are particularly hard-hit. 

Eliminating agencies’ key programs and crucial staff will further diminish capacity for oversight, permitting, and enforcement. Polluters will get away with more harm to our most precious resources. 

Moreover, these cuts are part of a wider plan to gut our government, laid out in the extreme right-wing blueprint Project 2025. And OMB head Russell Vought is now bringing Project 2025 to life.

Vought has long been scheming to dismantle federal agencies as a key architect of Project 2025. Now, as head of OMB, he can make his dreams a reality. 

OMB serves as the “President’s air traffic control system,” as Vought himself has put it. It drafts and implements the president’s agenda and oversees agency budget requests.

Vought is using this power to implement mass layoffs and gut protections that agencies enforce and carry out. Agencies have been directed to provide OMB with their restructuring plans. And so far, OMB is refusing to turn them over to us.

Given how dangerous Vought has already proved to be in this role, and how so many of these actions have been planned behind closed doors, it’s more critical than ever that we shine a light on how OMB is overseeing agencies’ self-destructive plans. 

Trump’s Mass Deregulation Is Just Beginning

Trump isn’t just tearing apart the agencies that carry out and enforce essential protections. He’s attacking those protections themselves. Environmental regulations have been a significant target for Trump. No surprise there — Trump has staffed his administration with lobbyists and executives from the fossil fuel and chemical industries who have long profited from pollution.

In March, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history,” moving to roll back dozens of critical protections against polluters. Then, in July, Trump gave many industrial polluters a 2-year pass to pollute, including coal-fired power plants, chemical manufacturers, and iron ore facilities. 

In addition to air and climate protections, this administration is also attacking any regulations that keep our water clean. In March, EPA announced it would issue a new rule to exclude many wetlands from Clean Water Act protections. 

Unfortunately, we know this is only the tip of the iceberg. Trump has ordered agencies to create lists of rules for the chopping block. We know many of the most egregious plans, such as EPA’s narrowing of the Clean Water Act. But learning about the full scope of these nefarious plans across all federal agencie, is an essential first step to fighting back.

We Need the Truth Behind EPA’s Unhinged Endangerment Finding Decision

One of our FOIAs demands more information on EPA’s plan to roll back the greenhouse gas endangerment finding, which underpins the agency’s ability to regulate climate pollution. 

In 2009, EPA found that six greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants and endanger public health, and thus can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. This allowed for emissions standards and protections that finally started reining in the worst-offending sectors like oil and gas production, power plants, and transportation.

Going against clear scientific consensus, Trump’s EPA has proposed rescinding the endangerment finding. Ridiculously, the agency argues that new scientific and economic information makes it unnecessary. The rule EPA will soon propose will pave the way for complete climate denial by the government.

We understand, even more now than in 2009, that emissions from burning fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change. There is simply no debate. Scientists whose work EPA cited in its attempt to justify the rollback have come out publicly to say that their work was twisted and misrepresented.

Rescinding this finding will take a critical tool out of the government’s toolbox, at a time when bold climate action is more important than ever. Every year, we see more destructive climate-related disasters. In 2024, there were 27 confirmed climate disaster events that caused more than a billion dollars in devastation each. One disaster alone — Hurricane Helene — took 252 lives across seven states.

It’s no surprise that public health experts have decried the rollback of the endangerment finding. It would open the doors for more air pollution and related health harms beyond greenhouse gases, especially impacting marginalized communities that already face the brunt of air pollution and climate risks. The administration’s rescinding of the endangerment finding, like so many of its policies, will cost lives.

Fighting Trump’s Pro-Polluter Agenda

Our FOIA suit is a powerful tool for transparency against an administration that is hell-bent on destroying the government and environmental protections at breakneck speed.

The Trump administration is showing its hand by kneecapping important protections and gutting the agencies dedicated to protecting our shared resources. These are clear gifts to corporate polluters — putting profits and pollution over people and public health.

We will not let them destroy hard-won environmental protections in secret. Exposing these plans is the first step to stopping them. The records we’re seeking will help us fight the administration’s illegal actions, in the courts and on the ground.