How Donald Trump is affecting Americans' everyday lives
The cost to Rhode Island so far
- Over 47,000 Rhode Islanders will lose health insurance
- 10,000 Rhode Islanders are at risk of losing food assistance
- Nearly 6,000 Rhode Islanders could lose their job
- Combined with Trump’s reckless tariff agenda, the median household in Rhode Island will lose $1,300
- Rhode Islanders’ electricity bills will rise by 10.5%
- Trump’s reckless tariffs have already cost Rhode Island businesses $231.9 million
 |
| Lucas Burtin / Grist |
Over the last six months, Americans have been inundated with a near-constant stream of announcements from the federal government — programs shuttered, funding cut, jobs eliminated, and regulations gutted.
Donald Trump and his administration are executing a systematic dismantling of the environmental, economic, and scientific systems that underpin our society. The onslaught can feel overwhelming, opaque, or sometimes even distant, but these policies will have real effects on Americans’ daily lives.
In this new guide, Grist examines the impact these changes
could have, and are already having, on the things you do every day. Flipping on
your lights. Turning on your faucet. Paying household bills. Visiting a park.
Checking the weather forecast. Feeding your family.
The decisions have left communities less safe from
pollution, more vulnerable to climate disasters, and facing increasingly
expensive energy bills, among other changes. Read on to see how.
Your Home
Flip on your lights:
Pulling back from renewable energy could make your
electricity bills go up.
When Trump began his second term, it was with a vow to
“unleash American energy.” But over the last six months, it’s become clear that
this call to arms was meant strictly for fossil fuels, not the country’s
booming renewable energy industry. Trump has issued a series of executive
orders to revive coal production, and he has opened up millions of acres of public land to oil and
gas drilling and issued a moratorium on offshore wind leases.
This commitment was deepened with the Republican-led One Big
Beautiful Bill Act signed into law on July 4. It bolsters investment in fossil
fuels while sunsetting Biden-era credits for electric vehicles, energy
efficiency, and wind, solar, and green hydrogen. Climate and clean energy
advocates described the
bill as “historically ruinous” for renewables and a massive handout to the oil and gas industry. The problem:
Power demand is rising sharply, and recent growth in renewable energy has been
reliably and affordably meeting that demand.
All of this could soon impact Americans’ electricity
bills: According to one analysis by the nonpartisan think
tank Energy Innovation, by 2035 the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could spike
wholesale electricity prices 74 percent by stifling renewable energy at a time
when new capacity is needed, and raise consumer rates by 9 percent to 18
percent, or $170 annually.
Turn on your faucet:
Regulatory delays will continue to allow PFAS to
contaminate drinking water.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a class of
manmade chemicals used to make everything from firefighting foam to nonstick
cookware. Better known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down
easily, the compounds have become ubiquitous in our lakes, soil, and even our
own bodies. Roughly half the U.S. population consumes water tainted with
PFAS.
After years of mounting contamination and public outcry, the
Environmental Protection Agency finally took steps to regulate the chemicals
last year, establishing maximum levels for six PFAS types in drinking water.
But in May, the Trump administration said it would rescind the existing rules
and issue new ones for four of the chemicals, and delayed implementation of two
others until 2031.
Exposure to PFAS has been linked to decreased fertility,
developmental delays in children, and reduced immune function.
Check your weather forecast:
Funding and staff cuts are making it harder to track climate
change and weather.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or
NOAA, provides critical scientific research on the Earth’s environment to U.S.
communities and lawmakers. It houses the National Weather Service, which
generates the data that makes weather forecasts possible, as well as the
National Hurricane Center, which tracks tropical storms.
In the first few months of Trump’s second term, his
administration fired hundreds of NOAA employees, with plans to cut the agency’s
workforce by a further 17 percent next year. NOAA has also taken steps to discontinue the collection of essential satellite data that
forecasters use to track hurricanes once they form.
Combined, these cuts could threaten lives: In June, John
Morales, a longtime meteorologist in Miami, warned his
viewers that “the quality of forecasts is becoming degraded” and that
meteorologists may be “flying blind” with hurricane tracking this year due to
the Trump administration’s “cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on
science.”
Run your appliances:
Disbanding energy-efficiency programs could increase your
utility bills.
If you’re browsing for a new household appliance, like a
dishwasher or washing machine, you might notice that some of them come equipped
with a blue “Energy Star” label. The mark signifies that a machine meets a
certain energy-efficiency standard, set by the federal government, and it
allows consumers to choose appliances that can help keep utility bills low.
Earlier this year, the EPA announced
internally that it was planning to shut down the popular, voluntary program —
though building and consumer advocates are now trying to save it.
If Energy Star is indeed over, it would mark the end of a program that saves
American consumers some $40 billion annually in energy costs, or about $350 for
every taxpayer dollar that goes into the program.
The Department of Energy has also separately rolled back a slew of mandatory efficiency standards
on appliances, ranging from microwaves to washers and dryers, dehumidifiers
to ovens. Researchers estimate that the lower benchmarks could cost consumers $43 billion over
30 years of sales, due to increased electricity bills.
— Tik
Root
Pay your bills:
Tariffs are disrupting supply chains and raising household
costs.
Trump dubbed April 2 “Liberation Day” and imposed tariffs as
high as 50 percent on nearly every country in the world, as well as several key
commodities. Although he swiftly paused them for 90 days, the threat of
reinstatement looms and some tariffs — on China, Canada, and aluminum — have
already gone into effect, with higher prices on consumer goods like clothes, toys,
and furniture.
Companies generally pass the cost of tariffs on to their
customers (even if Trump tells them not to). If Trump’s full, proposed
tariffs ever do take effect, economists anticipate increased prices on
everything from cars to electricity to
building materials, the latter of which could also make natural disaster
recovery and home insurance more expensive.
— Tik Root
Your Commute
Fill your gas tank:
Fuel-efficiency rollbacks could cost you more at the pump
and worsen air quality.
Gas-powered cars have become more fuel efficient and less
polluting over the years largely due to federal regulations. After the 2008
financial crash, the Obama administration used the bailout of the auto industry
as leverage to impose stricter fuel-efficiency requirements, ensuring cars
drive farther on less gas, thereby saving consumers money at the pump and
reducing air pollution. The Biden administration later strengthened those
rules, requiring that automakers sell passenger cars averaging 65 miles per
gallon by 2031 — a one-third increase from 2024 standards.
The threshold, which applies across an automaker’s product lines, was designed
to gradually shift the industry toward electric vehicles, which do not release
exhaust fumes or other tailpipe pollutants.
In June, the Trump administration began the process of
formally rescinding those rules. According to an estimate last year from the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Biden-era rule would have saved $23 billion in fuel costs while also
reducing emissions and pollution.
Drive your EV:
Loss of tax credits and cuts to federal program will make it
harder to buy and drive an electric vehicle.
Under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, federal tax
credits for the purchase or lease of an EV — of up to $7,500 for new cars and
$4,000 for used — would run through 2032. But the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
repealed those measures and cut the runway to only a few months. The
erasure will likely make electric vehicles more expensive, which
would put the technology further out of reach for many low- to moderate-income
Americans.
For those who still can buy an EV, finding a place to plug
in could be difficult. In February, the Federal Highway Administration
said it was suspending the National Electric Vehicle
Infrastructure, or NEVI, program, which would have directed some $3 billion to
states to expand the nation’s charging network. In June, a judge blocked that move and ordered the administration
to unfreeze funds, but the court battle isn’t over.
— Tik
Root
Take public transit:
A funding freeze is pausing certain train, bus, and bike
lane projects.
For those who don’t exclusively rely on cars to get around,
Trump’s second term has been none too kind on the buses, railways, and bike
lanes that make up the country’s public transit system. Trump has
relentlessly attacked
New York City’s congestion pricing, designed to reduce traffic and raise
funds for public transit, and threatened to cut public transit funding to major
cities like New York and Chicago.
In March, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy froze funds and ordered an investigation into any
departmental grants that involve “equity analysis, green infrastructure,
bicycle infrastructure, [and] EV and/or EV-charging infrastructure.” The
directive also instructed employees to flag projects “that purposefully improve
the condition for EJ [environmental justice] communities or actively reduce GHG
[greenhouse gas] emissions.” The decision reverses Biden-era efforts to reduce
the climate footprint of the transportation sector, which is America’s largest contributor to global warming,
emitting over 1.8 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases per
year.
Your Food
Buy groceries:
New tariffs could raise your grocery bill.
The Trump administration’s whiplash approach to a wide swath
of exorbitant tariffs on other countries has sowed confusion among consumers,
manufacturers, and agricultural growers.
Although Mexico and the U.S. briefly appeared to reach an
agreement, Trump is now threatening a 30 percent tariff on all Mexican
imports, and a 17 percent rate on Mexican tomato imports has already
gone into effect. Other tariffs could drive costs up even higher: Trump’s 50
percent steel and aluminum imports could hike up the price of canned foods, for example. And
country-specific tariffs could increase the prices of imported
goods like coffee and chocolate.
Get food assistance:
Funding cuts are leaving people hungry.
Local food systems and national food safety nets have
been decimated by recent federal cuts. In March, after freezing nearly
two dozen streams of funding, the Department of Agriculture cancelled future
rounds of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program and
the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program. The two initiatives
were slated to dole out roughly a billion dollars to states, tribes, and
territories to reduce food insecurity. As a result, the USDA’s Emergency Food
Assistance Program’s deliveries to food banks and soup kitchens have been reduced or cancelled entirely; kids
in schools and lower-income
families have less access to affordable meals; and agricultural producers
across the country have
been forced to lay off employees, delay projects, or shut down
entirely.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made
unprecedented cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,
or SNAP, a federal program that helps nearly 42 million Americans afford groceries. The cuts
are further poised to increase food insecurity across the country at a time
when persistently high food costs, fueled in part by worsening climate
disasters, are among most Americans’ biggest economic concerns.
Eat safe food:
Federal job cuts are disrupting food safety programs.
The Trump administration cut 20,000 jobs from the Department of Health and
Human Services, which oversees the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention— two agencies that monitor and respond to foodborne illness outbreaks.
Although some employees were later reinstated, the FDA has paused multiple initiatives
due to staff shortages, including a quality control program that keeps the agency’s
network of food-testing laboratories running efficiently. The FDA also paused
its quality-testing program for milk and suspended a
program to test milk and cheese for bird flu just before the program launched. Meanwhile, the USDA axed a proposed
Biden-era rule to reduce salmonella risk in poultry.
The U.S. food supply is one of the safest in the world, but
experts say these cuts threaten to disrupt that system and undercut its ability
to keep consumers safe in the long term.
Support local farmers:
Funding cuts are leaving small farmers in the lurch,
threatening locally sourced food supplies.
Federal agricultural policy has centered on two
major priorities during the early months of the second Trump
administration: First is the slashing of federal food and agriculture funding,
which has left small producers struggling to stay afloat. Second is giving
farmers who grow traditional commodities such as corn, cotton, and
soybeans multibillion-dollar
bailouts. This strategy first became clear when the USDA began
freezing and cutting billions of dollars to programs that supported
the purchasing of goods from small and midsize farms. Then, the agency expedited
disaster subsidies — funds meant to help agricultural producers
recover from extreme weather — for commodity farmers. The decision funneled
economic aid away from small producers into the pockets of industrial-scale
operations.
With the strain of an agricultural recession looming over
regions like the Midwest, experts
see these moves by the administration ultimately leading to the loss
of many more small American farms, which would disrupt local economies and
limit access to fresh food.
Your Community
Take a breath:
Regulatory rollbacks could make air quality worse.
From rally stages to debate podiums, Trump repeatedly
promised to deliver “clean air and clean water” if elected to a second term. He
broke that promise almost from Day 1. Trump’s EPA is carrying out a massive
deregulatory agenda, much of it focused on rolling back protections for the air
we breathe. It rescinded billions of dollars in funding for a range of air
quality initiatives, including clean energy projects and monitoring efforts in
low-income and minority communities, though a judge ultimately ruled the latter unlawful. At the same time, the
administration has also dramatically reduced the number of cases it brings
against polluters. It even set up an email inbox soliciting requests from
companies seeking exemptions from a range of clean air rules.
The agency has also taken steps to roll back limits on
carbon dioxide and mercury emissions from power plants and methane emissions
from oil and gas fields, which drive climate change and threaten human health.
And in July, it repealed the “endangerment finding” — the landmark legal
determination that classifies greenhouse gases as air pollutants and gives the
EPA authority to regulate them.
Prepare for extreme weather:
Cancelled grant programs are making communities less
resilient to natural disasters.
This spring, the Trump administration cancelled the
Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, program — an
initiative that sends billions of dollars to communities, municipalities, and
states proactively so that they can prepare for natural disasters before they
hit. The program funds projects like burying power lines, building culverts,
and upgrading power stations to make them more resilient to extreme
weather.
Trump canceled $750 million in new resilience funding and clawed
back nearly $900 million in grant funding provided to BRIC
by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, money that was already approved but
not yet disbursed. The abrupt move ultimately led to the disruption of $3.6
billion in planned resilience spending across the U.S. — the kinds of projects
that help protect people from flooding, wildfires, hurricanes, and more at a
time when climate change is increasing their severity and frequency. Under
Trump, FEMA also cancelled $600 million in flood-mitigation assistance
funding to communities this year.
Go outdoors:
A defunding campaign is threatening our shared spaces.
The future of public lands, parks, and forests in the U.S.
is in the midst of a dramatic reshaping by Republicans, risking permanent
changes to the environment and how we experience the outdoors. The Trump
administration has fired a thousand National Park Service workers, hindering
conservation efforts and leaving parks unable to accommodate the millions of
visitors they typically welcome each summer. The administration also stripped
protections for nearly 60 million acres of national forest and
identified millions of acres eligible for potential oil and gas development. And a
growing movement among Republican lawmakers and the administration would sell
off millions of acres of public lands for housing and energy development — a
policy opposed by 74 percent of Americans.
In June, the Department of Justice granted the president the
authority to revoke national monument designations, a status that marks
land as permanently protected. The move threatens sites such as Bears Ears in
Utah and the Sáttítla Highlands in California — two monuments that Trump
has singled out in particular — which are significant to tribes and illustrate
the complex history of U.S. public lands as stolen land.
Wildlife watching:
New definitions are weakening species protections.
For decades, the Endangered
Species Act recognized that in order to protect animals, it was vital
to save the habitats they live in. The policy has led to the rebound of iconic species like the bald
eagle, grizzly bears, grey wolves, and panthers, and it has protected millions
of acres from development. But in April, the Trump administration proposed
a new definition of the word “harm” that scientists,
legal experts, and conservationists warn will hamstring the act’s effectiveness.
Instead of the Endangered Species Act regulating activities
that indirectly impact endangered or threatened species, like drilling in the
spawning grounds of Atlantic sturgeon or logging forests that are home to a
rare owl, the law will now only consider direct, intentional harm to the animal
itself — killing, hurting, or capturing it. The rule change comes at a time
when climate change and land use decisions increasingly threaten ecosystems and
the animals that rely on them.
Protect your health:
An attack on science is hindering research on public health.
The federal government has hemorrhaged more than 50,000 employees since Trump was reelected
in January, including many who play crucial roles in keeping American waters
and air safe from pollutants and disease-causing organisms. A quarter of the
staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alone were fired, leaving gaping holes across an agency tasked
with keeping tabs on the movement of pathogens across the nation. The EPA is in
the midst of a defunding and deregulation campaign, including the elimination
of its research division, all of which limits its ability to oversee
polluters. And the National Institutes of Health is rebranding
its research on the intersection of climate change and public health,
now focusing solely on extreme weather and excluding any mental health work.
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