By Brenna Yellowthunder and BJ McManama
May 30, 2025
Since taking office, the 47th president has signed dozens of disastrous Executive Orders (EOs) with long-lasting consequences for the 99% of us who aren’t ultra-rich oligarchs. In light of the chaos imposed by this administration, we chose the following EOs, which threaten our efforts to preserve and protect Mother Earth from corporate greed and fascism, and avoid, as much as possible, the path of irreversible climate chaos– with a focus on those most harmful to environmental justice.
Many of these EOs are fairly lengthy, written in purposely vague or misleading language, and redundant, which masks the true purpose of these orders for a majority of people who are unfamiliar with political, legislative, and legal wordsmithing.
Below are three EOs, the key elements, and how they may negatively affect our communities.
This EO:14154 changes how the federal government issues permits for mineral and energy exploration on federal lands, and attempts to nullify a long list of previous Executive Orders, that are decades old, from both former Republican and Democratic presidents to include the most recent from the Biden administration. We strongly recommend these be reviewed for a better understanding of this administration’s disastrous agenda priorities. (These can be found about halfway down the page here (Sec. 4).
Among this list of revocations is Executive Order 11991 of May 1977, Responsibilities of Federal agencies. Consonant with Title I of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, hereafter referred to as the “Act,” that established guidance and provided a measure of accountability, such as sharing and factoring in information about potential environmental hazards that changed or prevented full or partial approval for a proposed project.
With the breakneck speed at which EOs are being issued, you might not have noticed that this one orders the termination of the American Climate Corps. This is a huge blow to tribal youth with the cancellation of the next installment for this project, following the Indian Youth Services Corps (IYSC) initial grant of $7 million two years ago as the initial investment from the $15 million committed from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to strengthen the IYSC and other corps programs for under-served communities.
All our hard-won fights the past few years, like saving the Bears Ears Monument from natural resources extraction and industry greed, are under fire with the withdrawal of guidance on the “social cost of carbon” under EO 13990. This EO also states explicitly that all appropriate federal departments “conduct a review of the monument boundaries and conditions that were established by Proclamation 9681 of December 4, 2017 (Modifying the Bears Ears National Monument).”
And if all this wasn’t enough, it pauses the disbursement of the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, grants that would have benefits for Tribes and community projects.
Lastly, but not least, this Trump EO directs an expedited review of liquefied natural gas export applications, streamlines deep-water port approval processes for LNG exports, and prioritizes critical mineral mining projects and geological mapping.
“This executive order dismantles and revokes previously established key environmental Executive Orders and policies. It prioritizes increased mining and extraction on federal and Tribal lands, including offshore waters. It will increase energy exploration and production in oil, gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, nuclear energy, and critical minerals. It aims to deregulate domestic mineral production and processing by stripping away environmental protections, fast-tracking permits, and accelerating federal funding. Indigenous Peoples, our territories, and ancestral homelands are not sacrifice zones. We have a right to say NO to harmful extractive industries that adversely impact the land, air, and water, and the health of all living beings.”
-Talia Boyd (Diné), IEN Mining Organizer and Co-Coordinator, Keep It In the Ground Program
Speaking of expedited review, Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential EO, includes expediting permitting for energy and mineral exploration on federal/Tribal lands. From prioritizing LNG export sales to rescinding the cancellation of any leases within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the list goes on and on. Trump continues his attacks on Tribal sovereignty by opening up a fire sale on Indigenous lands. Where is the order that reinforces the Free Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples? Or the protection of the Coastal Plain? Ignored, rescinded, expanded, and mandated additional leasing through the Oil and Gas Leasing Program, issuing all permits, right-of-way permits, and easements necessary for oil and gas companies to drill in and destroy the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This EO all but eliminates the progress made under Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to protect the areas vital to the health of caribou herds and Gwich’in rights to food and cultural sovereignty by mandating immediate “review” of all previous DOI guidance and policy regarding the taking of Alaska Tribal lands into trust. In other words, this is a blatant land grab to create new territory that will become another sacrifice zone controlled by the fossil fuel companies.
To add insult to injury, Trump canceled the request by the Gwich’in Peoples to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to establish a sacred site in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge within their homelands of northeast Alaska. With this EO, Trump is attempting to force us back into the dark ages with the reinstatement of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. How far will Trump turn the clock back? What other medieval laws is he planning to enact?
“Alaska is under attack. Our traditional lands, hunting and gathering grounds waters and weather systems, the seal grease trails, from the Arctic Passage to the depths of the northernmost waters, the biodiverse ecosystems the world relies on to remain intact are threatened by the decisions that this Administration have made which lack Free, Prior, and Informed Consent of the rights-holders of these frontline communities who have stewarded these places since time immemorial. Dirty deals for dirty industries to exploit a false narrative are happening on all fronts.”
-Aakaluk Adrienne Blatchford, (Inupiaq/Yu’pik from Unalakleet), IEN Geoengineering Outreach Organizer
NOTE: Friends of the Earth US published a report on the Alaska LNG project Friday (5.30.2025). This report highlights the subsidies and public financing that the $43.8 billion project is eligible for. Despite significant economic headwinds, the fossil fuel industry and Big Oil allies in Alaska have continued to push for public financing of the project.
To wrap up for now, let’s examine the truth behind this EO that falsely claims that the United States isn’t producing enough energy, which is clearly an excuse to expedite energy production for more money. This inevitably leads back to targeting ‘federal lands’, a fight we know all too well as Trump declares he will rescind National Monument status from hard-won protections from places such as Chuckwalla in Southern California, and others. Under these orders, we are already seeing that the Department of the Interior will cut the permitting process for these dangerous projects to 28 days or less. Even before all this nonsense, the process fell woefully short of the bare minimum; it doesn’t even meet the basic standards outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for Free, Prior, and Informed Consent! This EO is already leading to direct attacks on Tribal sovereignty and our right to exist in relation to our lands and water. This is exactly why we must categorically reject any attempts to develop fossil fuel infrastructure and secure a sustainable future.
“The Trump Administration Executive Orders are climate denial policies creating complicity and perpetuating a crime against humanity and Mother Earth. Our Indigenous lands, waters, and U.S. federal lands and national monuments are not sacrifice zones to justify a colonial governmental national energy emergency dependent on a fossil fuel and dirty energy economy. The EOs accelerate extractivism and bankroll the expansion of the fossil fuel industry, delaying real action to phase-out oil, gas, and coal.”
Tom BK Goldtooth (Diné/Dakota), Executive Director, IEN
The Executive Orders we’ve outlined here are timely examples of the extent to which our rights and freedoms as Indigenous Peoples are being violated in the most egregious ways. We’ve witnessed in these few short months the extent to which this administration is willing to initiate and legislate away regulations that, as inadequate as they have been, still provided us with the legal power to stop the worst of the polluting industry’s operations. Instead of unleashing out-of-control extraction that leaves a wake of toxic waste on Tribal and public lands, we need stronger protections that codify ways to hold industry, administrators, and bad government actors and agencies accountable.
This is merely an overview that scratches the surface of the underlying playbook of the Project 2025 agenda being implemented with EOs and the reconciliation budget bill (now being debated in Congress) that will have massive negative consequences for all life on Mother Earth. From the economic, environmental, and human health consequences, vulnerable communities will continue to suffer from the expansion of policies that continue and create more inequities and the indisputable outright cruelty of the billionaire class.
Many Indigenous Peoples share ways of being that incorporate the Seventh Generation Principle that informs and influences the decisions we make, both individually and as members of our communities. If only this colonial government would accept and not continue to scientific and historical data that clearly outlines the negative generational impacts of their self-dealing that is driving the avalanche of EOs, and forcing the political majority in Congress to blindly forge ahead by codifying 47’s harmful laws currently making its way through the House and Senate.
Despite the challenges and hardships we face, our collective strength and unity enable us to overcome adversity and emerge even more resilient. It is through our shared experiences and mutual support that we find the power to not only endure but to grow and thrive in the face of any obstacle.
We will not yield to the forces that seek to erase us or extract from our lands and waters. Rooted in the strength of our ancestors and guided by our traditional values, we will continue to resist—through action, through truth-telling, and through care for one another and our Mother Earth. Our movements are built not only on struggle, but on love, ceremony, and the enduring power of community. Even in the face of relentless attacks, we will find ways to gather, to laugh, to heal, and to dream. Because joy is also resistance, and we carry the future in our hearts.
