During Donald Trump's first term, he removed the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement and reversed nearly 100 environmental rules, according to an analysis by The New York Times. So while the Biden administration overturned several of these decisions, Trump's return to office could once again spell big changes for environmental regulation. 

What did the commentators say?
Trump "could erase many U.S. efforts to combat climate change," said The Washington Post. To push economic growth, he wants to "boost fossil fuel production, roll back rules aimed at curbing pollution, dismantle support for renewable energy, and step back from helping lead international climate negotiations." Fossil fuels have been proven to worsen climate change, so if Trump's agenda comes to fruition, the U.S. "will emit more greenhouse gases," said the Times.

The push toward renewable energy is likely to take a major hit. The president-elect has made "unsubstantiated and provably untrue comments about wind and solar energy, perhaps because oil interests give more money to political campaigns," said William S. Becker, the executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project and a former official at the U.S. Department of Energy, at The Hill. 

Trump also wants to repeal Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which provided close to $400 billion over 10 years to reduce emissions. His supporters are "eager to dump its clean energy provisions to help pay for tax cuts that Trump has promised," said the Times.

What next?
Trump selected former Rep. Lee Zeldin to be the head of the EPA. Though he has no expertise in climate, Zeldin "​​will likely be starting the process to overturn several of the Biden EPA's biggest rules on climate," said CNN. 

The president-elect also selected Chris Wright, the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, to head the Department of Energy. Wright has been a "vocal critic of government efforts to fight climate change," said Politico. He has also "called climate change activists alarmist and has likened efforts by Democrats to combat global warming to Soviet-style communism," said Reuters. 

On Oct. 9, when Hurricane Milton plowed into Florida's west coast, winds destroyed the roof of Tropicana Field, the domed stadium home to Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays since 1998. The field could not be repaired in time for the team to play its 2025 season there, said The Tampa Bay Times a week later. Most surprisingly, Pinellas County officials recently cast doubt on whether they will move forward with the planned new facility that was set to open in 2028, throwing the team's future in the area in doubt.

Troubled history
The story of the Rays embodied the idea of "if you build it, they will come." Boosters who wanted to attract an MLB expansion franchise spearheaded the construction of a domed facility (then called the Florida Suncoast Dome) in St. Petersburg, which was finished in 1990 without a professional sports tenant. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays began playing at the newly renamed Tropicana Field in 1998.

In 2023, the Rays announced an agreement to build a $1.3 billion retractable roof stadium in neighboring St. Petersburg with $600 million in public financing. That seemed to secure the team's future in Florida. Then came Hurricane Milton.

Where to now, Rays?
After the Trop's roof was destroyed, the league scrambled to choose a stadium somewhere near the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area that could accommodate the team in 2025, settling on the Yankees' 11,000-seat spring training facility in Tampa. But on Nov. 19, the Pinellas County Commission pushed back a vote to issue bonds for the new stadium and did not allocate the estimated $55 million needed to repair the Trop for the Rays' final two seasons in 2026 and 2027. 

The new stadium deal is perhaps not dead, but it has put a relocation of the franchise back on the table. The future of baseball in Tampa Bay "became less certain after that vote," said Rays owner Stu Sternberg in the Tampa Bay Times.