Policies & Analysis

In four proclamations, the Trump-Vance administration exempted various industries from regulations meant to protect public health and the environment.

The proclamations allow coal-fired power plants, taconite iron ore processing facilities making steel, and certain chemical manufacturers, to ignore EPA clean air standards issued during the Biden administration. These proclamations will increase the amount of toxic chemicals in the air, causing detrimental health effects and poisoning the natural environment. They demonstrate the Trump-Vance administration's commitment to higher profits for private corporations over the health and wellbeing of the American people.

The order creates a new classification of federal workers in "policy-making or policy-advocating [positions] normally subject to change as a result of a Presidential transition."

The order directs the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to create a new classification of federal workers--Schedule G--who are in "policy-making or policy-advocating [positions] normally subject to change as a result of a Presidential transition." The new classification, which appears to overlap with the existing Schedule C classification, would provide another way to appoint political loyalists to government positions. These would-be non-career appointments that give the President more control over executive branch appointments, further undermining a professional civil service.

This memo announces the termination of $4 billion in federal support for California's high-speed rail project.

The U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Railroad Administration announced that they would terminate their agreement with California to provide approximately $4 billion to build a high-speed rail project in California's Central Valley. The Trump-Vance administration argues that, because the project has extended its deadline and required more funds than anticipated, it has violated the terms of the agreement with the federal government. This sudden withdrawal of funding may further extend the time needed to complete America's first high-speed rail project, frustrating attempts to reduce travel times in traffic-congested areas and reliance on non-renewable energy in transportation.

This rule makes it more difficult for millions of Americans to access health insurance.

In June 2025, the Trump-Vance administration finalized the “Marketplace Integrity and Affordability” rule through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The rule imposes surprise fees, undermines premium subsidies, and creates new barriers to accessing coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It will raise costs for millions of Americans and cause an estimated 2.2 million people to lose coverage. The challenged rule introduces unjustified “junk fees” on people who auto-enroll in no-cost plans, undermines tax credits, and allows insurers to deny coverage over old debts. A typical family of four could see their annual costs rise by more than $700, despite no change in plan. Rather than promoting affordability, the rule destabilizes the insurance market and penalizes vulnerable families.

The state of Florida built a tent camp-style immigration detention facility in the Everglades and is detaining people there in dangerous and cruel conditions.

At the federal government's request, Florida seized a defunct airstrip in a national preserve in the Everglades from south Florida counties and quickly erected a tent camp-style detention facility with chain-link cages for detainees. The facility is operated by the Florida Department of Emergency Management, which lacks any agreement with DHS to detain noncitizens for immigration purposes. Immigrants are held in this facility, often without immigration charges, in dangerous conditions, with substandard medical care and food, and without access to attorneys.

These actions suspend enforcement and delay compliance of an anti-discrimination lending rule.

Congress directed the CFPB, through Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act, to collect lending data from financial institutions to ensure women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses, including small farms, have fair access to credit. After years of delay, the agency finalized a rule in 2023 to do this. But now, under the Trump-Vance administration, the CFPB has reversed course and announced that it is suspending enforcement and delaying compliance. This will undermine fair lending analysis and enforcement and make it more difficult for small businesses to succeed, to prevent discrimination, and support underserved entrepreneurs.

This decision terminates Temporary Protected Status for Cameroon and makes citizens of Cameroon deportable.

DHS Secretary Noem issued a decision terminating the existing Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Cameroon. TPS exists to protect from deportation citizens of countries experiencing armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other crises. The Cameroon designation was protecting some 5,000 Cameroonians in the U.S. from being deported and also allowing them to obtain work permits while they remain in the U.S.

People peacefully protesting the Trump-Vance administration's aggressive immigration policies are being met with violent attacks by law enforcement officers.

Many Americans strongly disagree with the Trump-Vance administration's aggressive and sometimes approach to immigration enforcement. But some people who have peacefully protested have been met with violence from law enforcement officers using weapons including tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper-balls, flash grenades, and guns. Several lawsuits have been filed challenging the violence towards protesters as a violation of their First Amendment rights. In September 2025, a federal district court in California issued a preliminary injunction blocking DHS from attacking journalists, legal observers, and protesters in the Los Angeles area. And in October 2025, protesters and members of the press filed a lawsuit against the use of near-lethal weapons against peaceful protesters outside an ICE processing center near Chicago.

This email encouraged immigration judges to dismiss pending immigration cases so that DHS could place people in expedited removal proceedings, which have less due process.

On May 30, 2025, senior leadership at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), within the Department of Justice, sent an email giving guidance to DOJ's Assistant Chief Immigration Judges (ACIJs) on case adjudication. The email's instructions conflicted with both regulations and the Immigration Court Practice Manual, and encouraged Immigration Judges to grant from the bench oral motions to dismiss proceedings, so that individuals in these immigration proceedings could instead be placed in expedited removal, a truncated deportation procedure that lacks due process. This email was formally "withdrawn" by DOJ on September 23, 2025: https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1414836/dl?inline.

The Department of Labor has taken steps to unlawfully eliminate Job Corps, a federal career training program that reduces unemployment and homelessness.

On May 29, 2025, the Department of Labor took steps to unlawfully shut down the 99 Job Corps Centers across the country, which are run by federal contractors, and eliminate the Job Corps program altogether. Job Corps is a federal career training program that has a track record of reducing unemployment, poverty, and homelessness for at-risk youth across America through education and training. Therefore, eliminating the program would have a catastrophic effect on youth throughout the United States.

HHS Secretary Kennedy announced that the CDC no longer recommends the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women, making the shots harder for patients to access.

In May 2025, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the CDC had removed the COVID-19 vaccine from the recommended immunization schedules for children and pregnant women. The reversal on vaccine recommendations makes it harder for pregnant patients to access the shots, especially in the more than half of U.S. states where the authority of pharmacists to offer vaccines is tied to federal immunization recommendations. Just days later, Secretary Kennedy doubled down on his anti-vaccine position, removing 17 independent vaccine experts from the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

This order attacks scientific inquiry and integrity under the guise of restoring trust in the scientific community.

This Executive Order represents an assault on scientific inquiry and integrity and paves the way for the manipulation of evidence-based policy by the federal government. For example, this EO directs agencies to make public “the data, analyses, and conclusions” related to scientific information or data used for making major policy. This is similar to the "Secret Science" rule from the first Trump administration that undermined federal agencies' abilities to use the best available science to craft policy. The EO purports to aim to restore trust in the scientific process, but it traffics in misinformation and propaganda around science and exacerbates the lack of trust in the scientific community.