When Joseph R. Biden, Jr. is inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States on January 20, he will reverse many of the environmental actions taken by President Donald Trump. Some of this he can and probably will do immediately, possibly on Inauguration Day; other actions will have to go through administrative processes that will take several months, at least. The Trump Administration neither secured nor repealed almost any environmental legislation even while Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate, and little it did in this area is irrevocable.

The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law’s Climate Deregulation Tracker lists 164 actions the Trump Administration took to repeal or weaken climate rules, and its Silencing Science Tracker shows 327 federal attempts to restrict scientific research or disregard or distort its findings. During his campaign President-elect Biden promised to restore and strengthen environmental regulations and to respect and listen to scientists. For the first time climate change was discussed extensively in the presidential debates, and both Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris mentioned it in their victory speeches on Saturday.