A few days ago, CEOs in the oil, gas and petrochemical industries awoke with every right to expect a happy new year.

Not so much for those hoping 2025 would include this checklist: Fewer poisons in our air and water, and addressing the causes of climate change, which is driving soaring property insurance premiums and the acceleration of the Gulf of Mexico into our coastal wetlands and communities.

That prediction is based on a little-noticed drama that took place on Capitol Hill on Dec.15. That’s when the GOP congressional majority under Donald Trump unveiled its game plan for environmental issues: wielding a hammer to pound out maximum profits for industry with no regard for compromise.

Just 24 hours earlier, some House and Senate members were praising the success of an 18-month-long negotiation that resulted in a bipartisan energy bill supported by both chambers. Important concessions had been made by environmentalists, including lowering limits on the time and “page length” allowed for analysis of environmental impacts on drilling in exchange for support in speeding renewable energy permitting.

But the next morning the House speaker, Louisiana’s own Mike Johnson, killed the deal.

His major reason: “With a Republican White House, Senate and House, we are confident we will secure stronger and more comprehensive permitting reforms in the next Congress.”

So much for working across the aisle.

And that means a renewal of Trump´s first term campaign to gut environmental protectionism, without the checks of a split Congress.

More evidence of what’s ahead comes from Trump’s nominees to lead agencies key to controlling pollution and addressing climate change. They read like a dream team for the nation’s polluters and a nightmare for everyone else.

Lee Zeldin, his pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, is a former GOP congressman with little experience in environmental issues except as an opponent of most regulations, earning a lifetime score of 14% from the League of Conservation Voters.

But he scored 100% as a Trump sycophant, echoing lies about a stolen 2020 election and skepticism about climate change. He can be expected to push Trump’s agenda to weaken the EPA and even kill programs educating the public about the science of measuring climate impacts.

But Trump’s pick of fracking mogul Chris Wright to head the Department of Energy will provide the happiest of new years for the fossil fuel business. Wright has said there “is no climate crisis” and that the costs of climate action are “clearly overwhelmed by the benefits of increasing more” oil and gas.

And finally, there’s Doug Burgum, the former North Dakota governor tapped as Trump’s secretary of the interior. Curiously, Burgum was climate woke as a governor, acknowledging the seriousness of climate change and even proposing that his state become carbon neutral by 2030. But that didn’t mean reducing oil, gas and coal production to get there.

Their chant was the same heard at almost every GOP talk on energy: We need more drilling to make America energy independent. And it’s a lie.

The U.S. has been producing more oil and gas than any country in history over the last few years, and in 2023, became the world’s leading exporter of gasoline.

Oil and gas businesses want to extract more oil from public lands so they can make more money, regardless of the costs to us.

We’ll all eventually pay a steep price for their happy new year.