Trump Dismantles Obama Regs on Energy, Environment

 

President Trump issued a sweeping executive order Tuesday to unravel several Obama-era environmental and energy regulations. Signed at the EPA headquarters, the order calls for an immediate review of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which restricted greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired plants.

“We’re going to have safety, we’re going to have clean water, we’re going to have clean air,” Trump said, “but so many [regulations] are unnecessary, so many are job-killing.” He added, “Together we are going to start a new energy revolution.”

Fox News provided more detail on the executive order:

In addition to pulling back from the Clean Power Plan, the administration is lifting a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.

The order also chips away at other regulations, including scrapping language on the “social cost” of greenhouse gases. It initiates a review of efforts to reduce the emission of methane in oil and natural gas production as well as a Bureau of Land Management hydraulic fracturing rule, to determine whether those reflect the president’s policy priorities. It also rescinds Obama-era executive orders and memoranda, including one that addressed climate change and national security and one that sought to prepare the country for the impacts of climate change.

Pushback from Democrats was swift, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi blasting the administration’s “spiteful assault” on the Clean Power Plan and declaring it would not bring coal jobs back.

“President Trump and Congressional Republicans’ contempt for clean air, clean water, and our clean energy future endangers the health of our children and the strength of our economy,” she said in a statement.

The Clean Power Plan has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and allies of the oil, coal and gas industries.

Trump’s overall executive order goes beyond that program and will suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.

 

Published in Environment
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  1. Jamie Lockett Member
    Jamie Lockett
    @JamieLockett

    Good.

    • #1
  2. Pilli Inactive
    Pilli
    @Pilli

    Pushback from Democrats was swift, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi blasting the administration’s “spiteful assault” on the Clean Power Plan and declaring it would not bring coal jobs back.

    This is an absolute lie.  Thousands of coal workers are currently laid off because coal mining and processing have been so severely curtailed.  They want to go back to work.

    • #2
  3. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    The word “review” in relation to government is tied in my mind with “committee” as mere political theater in lieu of actually doing something. But this all seems pointed in the right direction.

    Before his term is over, I hope Republicans eliminate some agencies and programs so that the next president can’t restore all of Obama’s nonsense with similar ease.

    • #3
  4. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Jon,

    Believe it or not this is not a jobs plan. This is a sanity plan. Insane environmental restrictions don’t help the environment but they destroy, jobs, GNP, individual productive earning power. Bad environmental restrictions are like a draconian regressive tax far more brutal on the poor. This regressive tax has one additional special feature. It generates no revenue and because it destroys the vitality of the economy it lowers the amount of money at any given tax rate the government collects. It is the ultimate lose lose proposition.

    Go for it President Trump and don’t look back.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #4
  5. Z in MT Member
    Z in MT
    @ZinMT

    Despite the carping over healthcare the immigration EO and such, Trump is rapidly taking an axe to the bureaucratic state. This is just more evidence of that. We may wake up in four years still trapped with Obamacare and still talking about immigration, but in immeasurable ways we will all be freer for the Trump presidency.

    • #5
  6. Jager Coolidge
    Jager
    @Jager

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):
    The word “review” in relation to government is tied in my mind with “committee” as mere political theater in lieu of actually doing something. But this all seems pointed in the right direction.

    I think this is a term of art.

    Because these EPA rules have been around for a while, Trump can not just undo them with an Executive Order. The Agency needs to go through similar process that was used to create the rule (hearings, public comment, ect) A “review” is the wording to begin the administrative process to change/eliminate the current EPA rules.

    • #6
  7. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    This action is long overdue. I’m glad to see it, and hope that cutting out all the harmful and ridiculous rules of the EPA (as well as eliminating people) will be a signature process throughout his governance.

    • #7
  8. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    The EPA needs to stop fooling around with climate change, as carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant.  It is essential to the ecosystem.   It never met the requirements for a NAAQS regulation, and what they offered was pseudoscience.

    Maybe the EPA could focus on actual pollutants, like the mine sludge the released into a river.  Come up with a streamlined permit process for the new factories Trump wants to see.

    • #8
  9. EEM Inactive
    EEM
    @EEM

    Can anyone comment on what, if any, impact this action will have on previous regulations that restricted Mountaintop Removal Mining? I’m not familiar with this and would be interested in articles discussing the issue.

    • #9
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