Trump to sign order sweeping away
Obama-era climate policies
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[March 28, 2017]
By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President
Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to undo a slew of
Obama-era climate change regulations, a move meant to bolster domestic
energy production but which environmentalists have vowed to challenge in
court.
The decree, dubbed the "Energy Independence" order, will seek to undo
former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan requiring states to
slash carbon emissions from power plants - a critical element in helping
the United States meet its commitments to a global climate change accord
agreed by nearly 200 countries in Paris in December 2015.
It will also rescind a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, reverse
rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production, and reduce
the weight of climate change in federal agencies' assessments of new
regulations.
"We're going to go in a different direction," a senior White House
official told reporters ahead of Tuesday's order. "The previous
administration devalued workers with their policies. We can protect the
environment while providing people with work."
Trump will sign the order at the EPA with the agency's Administrator
Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Energy Secretary Rick
Perry on Tuesday afternoon.
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The wide-ranging order is the boldest yet in Trump’s broader push to cut
environmental regulation to revive the oil and gas drilling and coal
mining industries, a promise he made repeatedly during his campaign for
the presidency.
"I cannot tell you how many jobs the executive order is going to create
but I can tell you that it provides confidence in this administration’s
commitment to the coal industry," Kentucky Coal Association president
Tyler White told Reuters.
PARIS ACCORD NOT ADDRESSED
Environmental groups have promised to challenge the orders.
"These actions are an assault on American values and they endanger the
health, safety and prosperity of every American," said billionaire
environmental activist Tom Steyer, the head of activist group NextGen
Climate.
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President Trump holds a rally at the Kentucky Exposition Center in
Louisville. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
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Green group Earthjustice said it will fight the order both in and
out of court. “This order ignores the law and scientific reality,"
said the group's president Trip Van Noppen.
Trump campaigned on a promise to sweep aside green regulations he
said hurt the economy, and vowed to pull the United States out of
the Paris climate accord. Since being elected, however, he has been
mum on the Paris deal and the executive order does not address it.
The White House official said Trump's administration was discussing
its approach to the accord, meant to limit the planet's warming by
reducing carbon emissions.
The order will direct the EPA to start a formal "review" process to
undo the Clean Power Plan, which was introduced by Obama in 2014 but
has never been implemented in part because of legal challenges
brought by Republican states.
The review is likely to trigger legal challenges by environmental
groups and some state attorneys general that could last years.
The Clean Power Plan would have required states to collectively cut
carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels
by 2030.
(Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Mary Milliken)
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