An executive order is a signed, written, and published directive from the President of the United States. Issuing an Executive Order is not to be confused with taking an Executive Action, which has little legal significance. Executive orders are not legislation; they require no approval from Congress, and Congress cannot simply overturn them.
All executive orders can be found at the Office of the Federal Register here.
Executive Orders for the current Trump administration and the previous Biden administration as related to climate are listed below.
On May 3, 2019, National Geographic Magazine published an updated timeline (dating back to March, 2017) of the Trump Administration’s first two years of environmental actions and policy changes. Although much of the piece focuses on deregulations, it covers executive orders as well, including two, signed on April 9, 2019, intended to smooth the path for companies to build oil and gas pipelines and limit the tools states have to block them, not to mention Trump’s earlier order to increase logging of forests on federal land, signed on December 21, 2018, a day before the government shutdown.
