The question for environmentalists became, what to do next?

“There is shock and chaos here,” Mr. Walke said, “so I do not know. I can’t answer that question.” But he added that his group would resume a smog lawsuit against the government that it had dropped because it had been lulled into believing that this administration would enact tougher regulations without being forced to do so by the courts.

Political analysts watching the Obama administration’s pullback from the environmental agenda this past month say that in the current climate there is little chance that environmentalists or their allies will ever side with the Republicans. After all, the Republican-led House of Representatives has been aggressively moving to curtail protections for endangered species and regulations for clean air and water, and most of the Republican presidential candidates have been intensely critical of any government effort to address climate change.

Still, they say, the president could face political repercussions in subtler but nevertheless corrosive ways: from losing volunteer enthusiasm to tying up his allies in fights with him instead of with his enemies.

“Energy from part of the base will now be directed at communicating with the White House and not with the public about the administration’s record,” said Daniel J. Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research group with close ties to the White House.

Image President Obama in the Rose Garden on Wednesday. On Friday, he went against the advice of environmental officials. Credit... Evan Vucci/Associated Press

And Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org, a five-million-member online progressive political organization that played a significant role in President Obama’s election in 2008, said he was sure that his members would be deflated.