Abusing Presidential "National Emergencies" for Power and Profit
Early dicey emergency invocations by Obama and Biden and Trump 1.0 are eclipsed by Trump's 2025 declarations.
I’ve posted before on President Trump’s gross abuses of the National Emergencies Act and other related tools through which presidents act without congressional oversight. Right out of the January 20 gate, I held a discussion on Trump’s absurd “national energy emergency” with Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen.
And of course, starting in 2022, I began critiquing the climate campaigners who were pressing then-President Biden to declare a climate emergency using the same powers. It’s worth nothing that the “Declare Emergency” activists who were blocking roads and spraying paint back then have an empty calendar now, just when a real emergency is flaring…
But it’s time to revisit this overweaning abuse of powers granted by Congress to give presidents agility facing actual emergencies.
’s new post lays out the basics. Read the whole thing but here’s the key point - “Trump is creating national emergencies to gain more power. In the process, he’s subjecting millions to real harm” - and here’s an excerpt:[S]ince taking office on January 20, 2025, Trump has declared six national emergencies, including a “National Energy Emergency” and an emergency declaration against Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
He has also in effect declared an emergency to justify his wholesale leveling of significant portions of the federal government and civil service and his virulent attacks on the pillars of civil society — our universities, the media, science, law, and the arts….
Meanwhile, as Trump declares emergency after emergency to justify his reign of terror, he’s simultaneously eliminating America’s capacity to respond to real emergencies.
Just as vast swaths of Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky were underwater, Trump announced he’s ending a key program used by communities across the country to help prepare for natural disasters like flooding and fires.
[Read Grist coverage - FEMA moves to end one of its biggest disaster adaptation programs - and E&E News - FEMA halts grant program that spent billions on disaster protection.]
By terminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s program for building resilient infrastructure, Trump has cut off funds to mitigate real disasters, such as raising roads to keep them out of floodwaters or building underground storage units to prepare for droughts.
Make no mistake about what’s really going on here. While the United States has plenty of real problems to deal with, Trump is ignoring them to manufacture the fake emergencies he needs to further enlarge and centralize his power.
The fix for presidential overreach
That’s all unwell and not good, but what can be done about all of this? Sadly it won’t be easy given the Republican lock on Congress for now and Trump’s continuing domination of that broken party, but a key step is legislation.
The need to revisit the National Emergencies Act of 1976 has been clear for many years. Explore the congressional testimony and articles by Elizabeth Goitein, a longtime analyst of emergency powers at the Brennan Center for Justice (at NYU’s Law School) to see why. The Brennan Center has a heap of valuable additional resources.
The Detroit News editorial board energetically agreed on April 5:
The National Emergency Act was written to give presidents the ability to take actions during crises that are moving too fast for Congress to respond to them. They were not designed to allow a president to impose an agenda he can't otherwise get Congress to approve.
The act should be reformed. Declarations of an emergency should require congressional approval after 30 days. Renewal of the order should require Congressional approval as well.
There’s room for bipartisanship given that the roots of presidential overreach under emergency declarations extend back through the Obama and Biden admnistrations. Read this fine April 2 David Mastio column in the Kansas City Star editorial for background: No, Mr. Trump, Canada is not an ‘emergency,’ nor are the others you have authorized. Here are key excerpts but do read the piece for details:
In recent years, Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden have wielded this authority in ways that blur the line between genuine emergencies and political expediency, expanding executive power at the expense of democratic checks and balances. We now have more than 40 ongoing emergencies, with some lasting decades. Trump alone has declared six since Jan. 20 this year….
But today’s emergencies often feel less like unforeseen calamities and more like convenient justifications for policies that couldn’t survive legislative scrutiny….
Emergency authority was meant to be a temporary measure, not a governing philosophy.
Here are earlier Sustain What posts:
It's Essential to Act on Climate Emergencies Unfolding on a Heating, Flooding, Fiery Planet but a Mistake for Biden to Declare One
I first published this in July 2022, but it’s worth recirculating every time there’s a fresh push to declare an official climate emergency. My take after 38 years on the climate beat? There are plenty of local vulnerability emergencies, and humans have
My Suggestion for "Climate Emergency" Absolutists: Open One Lane
In between writing about the deadly unpredicted collapse of a heat-shriveled glacier in the Italian alps and preparing for Friday's Sustain What webcast on Colorado communities trying to rebuild after the Marshall Fire, I noticed, and then became horrified by, a Twitter thread of video clips posted by
I’ll close with the “Red” song from my favorite #fastfolk songwriter, Jesse Welles (also on YouTube here):
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