Shortly after Donald Trump was elected in November, Lance LeFleur, director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, co-signed a letter with the heads of the environmental agencies of four other states asking Trump to "return environmental leadership to the states."

Now LeFleur and others who wished for a stripped-down version of the federal Environmental Protection Agency may be getting their wish.

Trump froze the EPA's grants, contracts and communications shortly after taking office, although ADEM learned Wednesday that Alabama's EPA grants will be disbursed on schedule in spite of the freeze. Still, The Hill reports Trump plans major permanent cuts to the EPA, including its grants to state environmental programs.

ADEM depends on those grants to fund its operations, although exact figures on the amount of the grants were not immediately available.

But those who advocate for more environmental protections fear the incoming Trump administration will mean less oversight, less funding and more pollution for Alabama.

"For eight years, the EPA has been a boogie man," said Mitch Reid, program director for the Alabama Rivers Alliance. "It's 'the federal government is doing this to us,' while we have sort of languished here at the state level and not lived up to our responsibilities for environmental protection.

"We've been comfortable being a welfare state [taking EPA grants] while we were eager to bite the hand that was feeding us. Now that boogie man is largely taken away and we're going to have to have a sober conversation in Alabama about what clean water means to us."

Reid says that might mean ponying up and paying at the state level for environmental programs, which the legislature has been loath to do in recent years.

The legislature has slashed ADEM's state funding consistently since 2008, when its appropriation was around $6 million, culminating in a 2016 budget that required ADEM to pay $1.2 million into the general fund.

"This is a situation where the dog caught the car and now we've got to pay for it," Reid said. "Somehow Alabama's going to have to foot the bill -- which there seems to be no plan for -- or we are ultimately going to see increased threats and more pollution in our waters."

States race to the top, or bottom, of environmental standards

Those who are looking to advance or maintain environmental protections in a Trump administration are looking increasingly at the state and local level.

California and other states have already pledged to actively pursue measures to combat climate change and advance clean energy, even if those initiatives are scaled back at the federal level.

"There's no question about the place for progress at this point being at the state level," said Anne Kelly, senior program director for policy at Ceres, a coalition group of more than 130 corporations advocating sustainable business practices and renewable energy.

"You're seeing this tremendous race to the top for states who are trying to attract businesses and major companies and data center owners who are asking states about their renewable energy portfolio standards, about their energy mix as a siting criteria," Kelly said. "That's a pretty exciting trend that we're seeing around the country."

While some states race to the top to promote clean energy and sustainable practices, fears remain that others will do the opposite.

In a letter urging U.S. Senators to reject Scott Pruitt's nomination to be EPA administrator, 173 conservation groups throughout the country argued that a Pruitt-led EPA could create "a 'race to the bottom,' in which [states] are pressured to compete for industry by offering lax health and environmental

standards."

Birmingham-based clean air advocacy group Gasp was one of the organizations to sign the letter, and executive director Michael Hansen said local groups like Gasp would play an important role in holding polluters accountable in court if the EPA is weakened as they expect.

"What we do is keep an eye on the ground, talk to people in the community and see what's actually going on," Hansen said. "If we find out that a polluter is not meeting the Clean Air Act standards, or the health department is not enforcing it, then we have avenues, legally. That's where our work takes over is at the local level."

There are also fears that a weaker EPA could lead to increased conflicts among states. Sam Adams, the U.S. Director of the non-partisan World Resources Institute and former mayor of Portland, Ore., said pushing environmental protections back to states could also result in lawsuits over pollution that crosses state lines.

"I don't see any benefit of going back to sort of a state-by-state patchwork of laws and states suing each other over being the victim of the neighboring states' pollution," Adams said.

Who watches the states?

In addition to its role setting national science-based standards for air and water pollution, the EPA served as another avenue to ensure that state and local agencies are upholding their obligations under the environmental laws.

Hansen and Reid said that may not be the case in the Trump administration.

"I don't see petitioners or citizens or groups like ours being able to go to the EPA if, for example, ADEM isn't doing a good job," Hansen said. "I don't see that being helpful."

In 2010, the Alabama Rivers Alliance and several other environmental groups in the state petitioned the EPA to withdraw ADEM's water pollution permitting authority, alleging the department wasn't meeting its enforcement obligations under the Clean Water Act, and that it wasn't sufficiently funded to meet those obligations.

The EPA eventually denied the petition, but Reid said positive changes to the program came about because of the EPA's lengthy review of the program.

"Even though I disagreed with the agency's ultimate conclusion, I at least respect that they took the time and diligently looked into the way Alabama's program was functioning," Reid said. "I can't imagine a Pruitt-run agency that takes the time and diligence [in reviewing state programs] that the EPA has over the last four years."