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Timeline › 2025 › July › 17

July 17, 2025

3 entries on this date.

Trump signed EO 14317 creating unlimited Schedule G political appointee class, bypassing Senate confirmation and SES caps

President Trump signed Executive Order 14317 on July 17, 2025, creating Schedule G in the Excepted Service — a new, numerically unlimited class of non-career political appointees who fill "policy-making or policy-advocating" roles without Senate confirmation. Unlike the Senior Executive Service, whose political appointments are capped at 10 percent by statute, Schedule G positions do not count against that limit, allowing the administration to install an unrestricted number of Trump loyalists in senior agency positions. The White House described the order as providing "horsepower for agency implementation of administration policy" and as a tool to "dismantle the deep state."

Interior Secretary Burgum ordered personal approval of every wind and solar permit on federal land

On July 17, 2025, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered that he personally approve every solar and wind energy project on federal lands and waters, an "elevated review" covering proposed leases, rights of way, construction and operational plans, grants, and biological opinions. Interior said the order corrected "preferential treatment" for renewables, while a coalition of wind and solar developers sued, alleging it was designed to place wind and solar into "second-class status" relative to fossil fuels. A federal judge in Massachusetts later found the order likely violated federal law and preliminarily enjoined its enforcement.

Trump exempts 180+ facilities from Clean Air Act air-toxics rules via an EPA email inbox

Across 2025, President Trump signed seven proclamations invoking Clean Air Act Section 112(i)(4) — a provision unused in the statute's 55-year history — to grant more than 180 industrial facilities in 38 states and Puerto Rico a two-year exemption from federal hazardous-air-pollutant standards. A May 2026 ProPublica investigation found that facilities qualified by emailing an EPA-run inbox, with no rigorous application and no meaningful role for the agency's air-quality experts. The statute permits such exemptions only where compliance technology is "not available" and the exemption is "in the national security interests of the United States."