News blog about US politics
Trump officially declares greenhouse gases harmless
Updated February 12, 2026 – 9:27 p.mReading time: 4 minutes
Trump is abolishing important regulations for climate protection. The US institute Gallup is conducting an important survey. All developments in the news blog.
US Senate Democrats have blocked a Republican budget proposal that would fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through September. The bill failed to meet the necessary 60-vote threshold. This means that a shutdown of the authority is almost certain.
US President Donald Trump has overturned one of the most important climate protection guidelines in the United States. On Thursday he declared the so-called risk assessment from 2009 invalid, according to which greenhouse gases are harmful to health. The rules for carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles and from gas and coal-fired power plants in the USA are based on this, among other things.
Trump spoke of the “largest deregulation measure” in US history. The right-wing populist called the climate regulations from the time of his predecessor Barack Obama “catastrophic”. In particular, it “severely damaged the American auto industry and massively increased prices for Americans.” Trump has repeatedly described climate protection as “the biggest fraud” in the world.
After more than eight decades, the renowned US polling institute Gallup no longer wants to collect approval ratings for US presidents, according to media reports. The institute, which has been tracking presidential popularity ratings since Franklin D. Roosevelt, wants to focus instead on factual issues, the New York Times quoted the pollsters as saying.
When asked whether political pressure contributed to the decision, Gallup emphasized, according to US news portal Axios, that it was “a strategic realignment based solely on Gallup’s research goals and priorities.” For example, surveys on topics that shaped daily life. In addition, approval ratings for political personalities are now collected by many providers and are therefore no longer an area in which Gallup can make “the greatest independent contribution”.
