Indiana Gov. Mike Braun answers reporter questions about two new executive orders on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (Leslie Bonilla Muñiz/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun took on environmental “justice” and “overregulation” in dual executive orders Wednesday — and said President Donald Trump’s timber production goals aren’t aimed at Indiana or its Hoosier National Forest.
“Indiana’s environmental policy will be based solely on sound science, not on a political agenda,” Braun told reporters. He defined environmental justice as “making environmental policy based on factors other than the environment.”
On Wednesday, he ordered state agencies and officials not to use environmental justice — including considerations of race, ethnicity, educational attainment or other social factors — as a “determining factor” in permitting, enforcement or grant decisions.
The executive order asserts that “there is no legal foundation” for using environmental justice in decision-making and requires that decisions instead be based on “scientifically sound data, objective standards and legal requirements.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency previously defined the term as “the just treatment and meaningful involvement of all people” — regardless of income, race, and more — in agency decision-making.
The agency sought to protect Americans from “disproportionate” impacts and promote “equitable access” to a healthy environment, according to an archived webpage. The Trump administration has since taken it down.
Asked if the order was intended to take out existing policies or be proactive, Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources Suzanne Jaworowski said, “It’s a little bit of both.”
“We don’t necessarily have environmental justice policies,” Jaworowski told reporters after Braun’s news conference. But, she said, “There can be individuals who take it upon themselves to interpret” existing policies through that lens while working at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management or Department of Natural Resources.
The order establishes “that that is not part of our job here,” she added.
It’s backlash to “pressure that environmental agencies received” under former President Joe Biden’s EPA, Energy and Natural Resources Chief of Staff Parvonay Stover said.
Cutting red tape
A second executive order seeks to pare back Indiana environmental policies that go beyond the federal “baseline,” according to Braun.
“We can grow our economy and protect our environment,” he said, “and I believe the federal standards are an appropriate baseline to strike that balance.”
The order blocks Indiana from adopting any new environmental rules, regulations or programs more stringent than national requirements, unless a state law or Braun’s administration says they’re needed to address “specific, unique” needs.
It also directs agencies that enforce environmental policies to ensure proposed regulations don’t “impose unnecessary burdens” on businesses, communities and more.
Those agencies must also identify existing policies that are burdensome, raise cost of living, aren’t supported by law or science or don’t benefit the environment. A report on “opportunities to revisit or rescind” such policies is due to Braun by July.
Another review, this one of environmental policies going beyond federal requirements without “explicit” statutory permission, must be complete by the end of October. A written report, justifying any more-stringent provisions or recommending pared-back versions, is due to Braun and the Legislative Council by the end of the year.
Asked if any specific policies inspired the order, Jaworowski recalled numerous farmers and others complaining of “overstep” as Braun traveled the state.
“We heard those kinds of examples over and over again, and it was not part of state policy,” she said. “And so it really protects everybody to set the tone of: this is how far we go, in terms of regulation.”
Braun said his order would boost economic development — but cautioned, “I would never be in a place … where we weren’t maintaining what we’ve done over the last 50 years.” Hoosiers “need to do better” on water-polluting agricultural runoff, he added.
It’s not the governor’s first push to deregulate.
Federal logging, burning set for Indiana’s forest
Less than a month after Braun opposed a federal logging and burning plan for the Hoosier National Forest, Trump pushed to increase logging in such forests, The New York Times reported.
The president’s March 1 order directs various agencies to approve forestry projects faster, root out timber-related permitting delays and “undue” regulatory burden, set an annual target for timber logged from federal lands to expand timber production, convene a committee capable of overriding the Endangered Species Act, and more.
Gov. Mike Braun joins Indiana locals in long-held opposition against proposed forest project
The U.S. Forest Service already plans to cut back the Hoosier National Forest. The Buffalo Springs Restoration Project would log 5,000 acres and burn 15,500 acres of the southern Indiana forestland.
Hoosier advocates, like the Indiana Forest Alliance, have described the proposal as the “largest and most destructive project” in the forest’s history.
Braun, in a Feb. 6 letter, called on the U.S. Forest Service’s plans to “immediately withdraw” the plan.
On Wednesday, he sought to separate the two matters.
With the forest project, he said, “You’re burning and logging in a watershed that doesn’t make sense. I’ve been, one, in our unique forest, which is totally different from what I think President Trump’s referring to, which would be the vast forests in the West, where … they’ve got a lot of management they need to do around fires.”
“Our own Hoosier National Forest has not done a plan that’s reflecting changing needs and desires for the forest. And I think what’s happening nationally is mostly being referred to states like Utah, Nevada,” Braun said later.
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