The Trump administration’s full-scale assault on Obama-era clean power plants and climate regulations started with a flourish of the President’s pen on Tuesday. “You’re going back to work,” President Trump told a group of miners who flanked him as he signed the executive order in Washington, reports the Christian Science Monitor.
The executive order did not eliminate the power plant rules. Instead, the order directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review them and suspend or rescind or propose changes to any regulations that “burden” energy production, specifically coal or fossil fuels.
However, according to Climate Central, Michael Wara, an energy and environmental expert at Stanford Law School says that while the executive order is “more cautious and well thought-out” than any of Trump’s previous executive orders, “It doesn’t actually do anything,” he said. “What it sets in place is a process to review the rules promulgated by the Obama administration.” It’s more of a symbolic move at keeping his campaign promises.
Dismantling the Clean Power Plan is going to be difficult
You might be asking yourself, just how hard will it be to do away with the Clean Power plan and other climate regulations? Getting rid of the coal lease moratorium could be as simple as Trump just asking the Interior Department to reverse the ban and resume the coal leasing program.
However, as Digital Journal has previously shown, getting rid of the Clean Power Plan will be much more difficult. President Obama’s final version of the Clean Power Plan was unveiled on August 3, 2015, setting a national limit on carbon dioxide pollution produced by coal-fired power plants. It was very well received by most states and in particular, by two-thirds of all electric companies.
But the Clean Power Plan has not been enacted yet because of suits brought against it by 26 states, challenging the constitutionality and the political effects of the plan. The only way that Scott Pruitt can go forward in reviewing and ultimately getting rid of the plan would be for the EPA to ask the courts to halt their review of the plan, returning the regulation to the agency for review, effectively stopping any legal defense.
According to Bloomberg, that is just what has been done. Villanova University law professor Todd Aagaard says getting the court to halt its review is the easy part but getting it to agree to the next steps might be a whole lot harder. The administration must go through the rule-making process again to undo the plan. “They can’t kill it” outright, Aagaard said.
It will take more than a year for the EPA to remove the Clean Power plan from the federal regulations, however, they will be required to justify their effort, post it in the Federal Register for public comment and all the while, show proof the agency is still meeting the provisions of the Clean Air Act. This move will certainly be challenged in court.
“The EPA cannot simply dismantle the Clean Power Plan and leave nothing in its place,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, said Tuesday on behalf of 18 states that intervened in the court case in support of the rule. “This is not a situation where they can just junk the regulations.”
The Clean Power Plan
The Clean Power Plan is nothing more than a set of guidelines designed to reduce harmful carbon pollution from power plants, even as the United States continues to maintain energy reliability and affordability.
The plan calls for fossil fuels to continue to be a critical component of America’s energy future. The Clean Power Plan is designed to make sure that fossil fuel-fired power plants will operate more cleanly and efficiently, while expanding the capacity for zero- and low-emitting power sources.
An easy to read and assimilate overview of the Clean Power Plan can be found on the EPA’s website.
