Supreme Court to hear arguments over TikTok ban on Jan. 10

(WASHINGTON) — Environmental nonprofits are gearing up to challenge some of the actions President Donald Trump has issued since taking office.

There is litigation coming for the majority of the executive orders Trump has signed so far that affect the environment, conservation and decarbonizing the economy, several nonprofits told ABC News.

Environmental lawyers are also on standby for any directives issued in the future that could violate existing environmental laws, according to several sources familiar with the lawsuits already being prepared against the Trump administration.

The White House did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

How environmental groups are responding to Trump’s executive orders

Trump began his second term as president by signing a slew of executive actions, including an order that attempts to revoke action taken by President Joe Biden in the last weeks of his term to ban all future offshore oil and natural gas drilling on America’s East and West coasts, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s North Bering Sea.

While Trump immediately vowed to reverse the ban when it was signed on Jan. 6, that could prove difficult. The law Biden invoked, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, was written so a presidential action under its authority is permanent — providing legal precedent to ensure it stands, several environmental lawyers told ABC News, describing Trump’s move as illegal.

“We’ll see them in court at some point,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “I think we will prevail on this.”

Trump’s vow to revoke the ban is an attempt to fulfill his campaign promise to increase fossil fuel production, Sam Sankar, senior vice president at Earthjustice, the nation’s largest public interest environmental law firm, told ABC News.

In doing so, he is ignoring a large swath of U.S. coastline communities who would prefer for drilling to decrease, said Joanne Spalding, director of the environmental law program at the Sierra Club.

“People in Florida don’t want drilling. People in California don’t want drilling,” Spalding told ABC News. “There’s lots of places where people are not interested in having that activity on their coastlines.”

Existing environmental laws could also serve as roadblocks as Trump aims to increase the amount of federal land that will be subject to drilling, the experts said.

Separately, groups criticized Trump’s planned 10-to-1 deregulatory freeze, which would require the federal government to repeal 10 existing rules, regulations or guidance documents in order to adopt a new one, as “completely arbitrary,” Spalding said.

That order is “almost verbatim” to a two-for-one deregulatory freeze issued in 2017 that “never amounted to anything,” Hartl said.

“A lot of what we’ve seen, even in the first two weeks, have been almost just copy-and-paste activities from executive orders that we saw in the first Trump administration,” he said.

What worries conservation nonprofits the most

The potential dismantling of several federal agencies that conduct important work for conservation is a concern for environmental groups.

The Office of Management and Budget Office’s move to suspend federal financial aid programs could be a warning sign for federal agencies that conduct environmental work that does not align with Trump’s agenda, Hartl said.

“Right now, the biggest threat to the environment is Trump’s across-the-board attempt to simply dismantle the federal government,” he said.

In addition, the presence of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and DOGE head Elon Musk’s buyout offer to millions of federal employees could severely disrupt the conservation work of several agencies, he added.

“If you don’t have people working at the EPA, it’s pretty hard to keep the air clean, the water clean,” Hartl said. “If you don’t have folks working at the National Park Service, how are you going to run your national parks? How are you going to protect endangered wildlife?”

In addition, the potential defunding of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Act — both by enacted by Biden — poses serious setbacks for decarbonizing the country’s economy and moving toward a net-zero economy by 2050, environmental advocates said. Both are “the most important pieces of legislation ever in addressing global climate change,” Spalding said.

As part of his executive actions, Trump temporarily suspended the disbursement of funds from the IRA. Sankar said that has worried NGOs because the money is intended to advance the development of a clean energy economy as well as improve public health and support communities that bore the brunt of the impact of the fossil fuel economy.

“We are looking at and developing lawsuits aimed at ensuring that the money flows to the intended recipients,” he said.

Several lawsuits challenging the authority of DOGE are also being prepared, according to the groups.

Lessons learned from the 1st Trump administration

Many of Trump’s declarations are relatively symbolic or declare an intention but don’t necessarily constitute any actual action, environmental law experts said.

“Trump likes just holding up his signature, and that’s the main reason we we see him doing these flurry of executive orders,” Hartl said, adding that a lot of Trump’s actions were not effective during the first term.

Along with the executive orders comes rumor and speculation about what they actually can achieve, which makes it difficult for nonprofits to take immediate action, Sankar said.

Because of this, environmental groups may be more selective this time around about which executive actions they actually decide to take to court — especially since nonprofits don’t have endless resources to challenge every order, Spalding said.

“We’re always very choosy about our litigation to make sure that we have the best claims with the clients who are most clearly affected,” Sankar said.

This time around, environmental lawyers will be more savvy about responses, Spalding said.

“We’ll continue to focus on those priorities and make sure that we’re engaged every step of the way during the regulatory rollback process,” she said.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at combatting antisemitism calls on institutions of higher education to “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff” concerning “antisemitism” on college campuses.

Some legal scholars say they’re concerned about what this could mean for free speech on college campuses following more than a year of tension between students, faculty and administrators, while other experts noted that past McCarthy-era cases on communist activity could foreshadow the action’s legal standing.

The main thrust of the executive order’s purpose: “Jewish students have faced an unrelenting barrage of discrimination; denial of access to campus common areas and facilities, including libraries and classrooms; and intimidation, harassment, and physical threats and assault,” the order reads.

The fact sheet released by the White House on the new executive action threatens to “deport” college students in the United States on student visas and other “resident aliens” who expressed “pro-Hamas” or “pro-jihadist” views to “combat antisemitism on college campuses and in communities across the nation.” It calls for immediate action to be taken by the Department of Justice to “quell pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation, and investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.”

“It provides like a signaling mechanism and an alibi for university administrators who … want to crack down on Palestinian activism, and now they can point to this executive order and use the government as a further pretext for their actions, even though they’re under no legal obligation to do what the executive order says,” said Darryl Li, a legal scholar at the University of Chicago, in an interview with ABC News.

He added that in his legal opinion, “They’re not under a legal obligation to spy on their students and to report their students to the government. They need not, and they should not, cooperate with this executive order.”

However, past Supreme Court cases — particularly during the McCarthy era and the Cold War — found it is within Congress’ power to deport a legal noncitizen resident for their views, advocacy or membership in a political group if it’s in the interest of national security, Nadine Strossen, a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told ABC News.

These limitations also impact noncitizens attempting to enter the country, Strossen noted.

“There was this distinction; it’s one thing to say, government may not prosecute you, you may not be subject to civil penalties, but you may still be subject to deportation because of this doctrine that Congress has what’s called plenary power, pretty much unchecked power, with respect to matters concerning who is able to be present in this country and not present in this country,” said Strossen.

On Oct. 7, 2023, the Palestinian terror group Hamas attacked Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people, and around 250 others were taken hostage, according to the Israeli government.

Israel then began its monthslong retaliation on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.

The United States and the United Nations have not officially declared Israeli action to be a genocide. However, a UN Special Committee report found that Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza were consistent with genocidal tactics.

Protests and around-the-clock encampments concerning the war erupted at colleges and universities around the country.

Pro-Palestinian protesters called for an end to what they called an Israeli “genocide” against Palestinians and criticized the Israeli “occupation” of Palestinian territories. Pro-Israel protesters called for a return of the hostages or were in support of the Israeli effort against Hamas.

Colleges were thrust into the spotlight as they reckoned with charges of antisemitism and Islamophobia, and anti-Israeli, anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian sentiment amid the campus clashes.

Title IV, a law that bans discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in any institution or program that receives federal funding from the U.S. Department of Education, became the center of dozens of investigations across the country.

Students and professors, many of whom were advocating for a ceasefire or pushing for an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, were subsequently arrested at universities and protests across the country. Some were suspended or expelled from their universities, others were arrested for trespassing or disturbing the peace, though many charges were later dropped.

Student protesters critical of the Israeli government’s military actions in Gaza continue to face accusations of antisemitism. But many of the student groups behind the protests – including Jewish activists – have said that individuals making inflammatory remarks do not represent their groups or their values concerning the war in Gaza.

Other Jewish or pro-Israel students around the country have spoken out about the pressures they too have faced, including renewed concerns about safety and acts of hate as law enforcement noted a spike in antisemitic incidents.

Trump’s executive order calls on higher education institutions to familiarize themselves with 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) — which defines “inadmissible” non-citizens for their relationship to alleged “terrorist activities.”

FIRE released a statement against Trump’s executive order, arguing that college campuses are intended to be places of learning and debate over a wide range of issues: “Advocates of ideological deportation today should not be surprised to see it used against ideas they support in the future.”

“This openness, albeit unpleasant or controversial at times, is a defining strength of American higher education,” an online statement read. “It’s one of the features attractive to students traveling from abroad who may hope to take part in the speech protections Americans have worked so hard to preserve. These are protections that they may very well be denied in their home countries.”

International students, or staff members with visas, are in a vulnerable situation because of their status, legal experts say.

“The potential loss of the visa is something that, of course, is devastating to international students. And if your visa is revoked on sort of security or terrorism grounds, it’s kind of like a lifelong — you’re basically banned from the United States for life, even if you have family who are U.S. citizens who live in the United States,” said Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, who has advised hundreds of free speech or censorship cases concerning pro-Palestinian supporters.

Legal experts argue the order’s vague language is strategic to smear pro-Palestinian support — though the order doesn’t explicitly state concerns over support for “Palestinians” — which has long been painted as inherently antisemitic or terroristic.

“This is McCarthyist. It’s authoritarian,” said Sainath. “Students are really feeling the breadth already. Before Trump came in — from their own universities — students have been evicted from student housing and been homeless for minor, minor rule violations. They’ve been suspended, they’ve been expelled, they’ve lost scholarships, they’ve lost financial aid. The harm is really, really great, and many of these students are first-generation students. They are low-income students, and it can be quite harmful to be punished again for speaking out against a genocide.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to vote on former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for Director of National Intelligence in a closed-door session Tuesday afternoon. The vote follows Gabbard’s at-times contentious confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill on Thursday, where she was grilled over her views on government secrets leaker Edward Snowden and her refusal to label him a traitor.

Gabbard, a former Democratic Hawaii Congresswoman turned Republican, picked up three key Republican votes on Monday from Sens. Susan Collins, James Lankford and Todd Young. They had previously been critical of her past statements on Snowden and her opposition to government surveillance programs. Gabbard can only afford to lose one Republican vote on the committee.

During Thursday’s hearing, lawmakers from both parties repeatedly pressed Gabbard to disavow her past support of Snowden, a former intelligence contractor who fled the country with more than 1 million classified records. Gabbard previously described Snowden as a “brave” whistleblower who exposed civil liberties violations by the intelligence community. While in Congress, she introduced legislation stating that “Snowden’s disclosure of this program to journalists was in the public interest, and the Federal Government should drop all charges.”

While Gabbard repeatedly stated that Snowden “broke the law,” she did not back away from her previous statements and refused to call him a “traitor” despite being asked several times by senators from both parties.

In an op-ed in Newsweek over the weekend, Gabbard wrote that she explained in the closed session in her confirmation hearing why she refused to call him that.

“Treason is a capital offense, punishable by death, yet politicians like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former US Senator Mitt Romney have slandered me, Donald Trump Jr. and others with baseless accusations of treason. It is essential to focus on the facts, not the label. Snowden should have raised his concerns about illegal surveillance through authorized channels, such as the Inspector General or the Intelligence Committee, instead of leaking to the media.”

Gabbard also presented a four-point plan to prevent future Snowden-like leaks, which includes oversight to ensure there are no illegal intelligence collection programs, minimizing access to sensitive intelligence, informing government workers about legal options for whistleblowers, and creating a hotline for whistleblowers to contact Gabbard directly.

Several senators questioned Gabbard’s past opposition to government surveillance programs under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the U.S. government to collect electronic communications of non-Americans outside the country without a warrant. Gabbard, who voted against the provision as a member of Congress, said changes made to the program since she left office were enough to earn her support.

Gabbard faces perhaps the most difficult route to confirmation of all of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks. She cannot afford to lose any Republican votes in the committee. Her nomination is expected to be voted on during a closed-door confirmation session on Tuesday.

A source with knowledge of the proceedings told ABC News that newly confirmed CIA Director John Ratcliffe, former NSA adviser Robert O’Brien and former Sen. Richard Burr, a former Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, have been making calls to senators on Gabbard’s behalf. Gabbard has also talked to senators since her hearing, a source said.

Over the weekend, Young faced pressure from Gabbard and Trump allies, but on Tuesday, Young, who was believed to be the final key vote needed for Gabbard’s nomination to move from the committee to the Senate floor, announced he would support her.

“I have done what the Framers envisioned for senators to do: use the consultative process to seek firm commitments, in this case commitments that will advance our national security, which is my top priority as a former Marine Corps intelligence officer,” Young posted. “Having now secured these commitments, I will support Tulsi’s nomination and look forward to working with her to protect our national security.”

In a now-deleted post on X ahead over the weekend, Elon Musk said Young was a “deep state puppet.” However, hours later, Musk deleted the post and said, “Just had an excellent conversation with @SenToddYoung. I stand corrected. Senator Young will be a great ally in restoring power to the people from the vast, unelected bureaucracy.”

Meghan McCain, a close ally of Gabbard, also voiced her support over the weekend, posting, “Any Senator who votes against @TulsiGabbard for DNI isn’t just going to have a problem with MAGA and Trump – I will make it my personal mission to help campaign and fundraise against you in your next election. And my people are probably a lot like their people,” she added.

Young, who did not endorse Trump in his presidential campaign, had a heated exchange with Gabbard during her hearing.

“Did [Snowden] betray the trust of the American people?” Young asked.

“Edward Snowden broke the law,” Gabbard responded, “and he released this information in a way that he should not have.”

ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman and Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.

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