https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/epa-chief-says-administration-roll-150239621.html
HAZARD, Ky. (AP) -- The head of
the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday that he will sign a new
rule overriding the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era effort to limit
carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.
"The war on coal
is over," EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt declared in the coal mining
state of Kentucky. He said no federal agency "should ever use its
authority" to "declare war on any sector of our economy."
For
Pruitt, getting rid of the Clean Power Plan will mark the culmination of
a long fight he began as the elected attorney general of Oklahoma.
Pruitt was among about two-dozen attorney generals who sued to stop
President Barack Obama's push to limit carbon emissions.
Closely
tied to the oil and gas industry in his home state, Pruitt rejects the
consensus of scientists that man-man emissions from burning fossil fuels
are the primary driver of global climate change.
President
Donald Trump, who appointed Pruitt and shares his skepticism of
established climate science, promised to kill the Clean Power Plan
during the 2016 campaign as part of his broader pledge to revive the
nation's struggling coal mines.
In his order Tuesday, Pruitt is
expected to declare that the Obama-era rule exceeded federal law by
setting emissions standards that power plants could not reasonably meet.
Pruitt
appeared at an event with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at
Whayne Supply, a Hazard, Kentucky, company that sells coal mining
supplies. The store's owners have been forced to lay off about 60
percent of its workers in recent years.
While cheering the demise
of the Clean Power Plan as a way to stop the bleeding, McConnell
conceded most of those lost jobs are never coming back.
"A lot of
damage has been done," said McConnell, a Kentucky Republican. "This
doesn't immediately bring everything back, but we think it stops further
decline of coal fired plants in the United States and that means there
will still be some market here."
Obama's plan was designed to cut
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
The rule dictated specific emission targets for states based on
power-plant emissions and gave officials broad latitude to decide how to
achieve reductions.
The Supreme Court put the plan on hold last year following legal challenges by industry and coal-friendly states.
Even
so, the plan helped drive a recent wave of retirements of coal-fired
plants, which also are being squeezed by lower costs for natural gas and
renewable power, as well as state mandates promoting energy
conservation.
The withdrawal of the Clean Power Plan is the
latest in a series of moves by Trump and Pruitt to dismantle Obama's
legacy on fighting climate change, including the delay or roll back of
rules limiting levels of toxic pollution in smokestack emissions and
wastewater discharges from coal-burning power plants.
The
president announced earlier this year that he will pull the United
States out of the landmark Paris climate agreement. Nearly 200 countries
have committed to combat global warming by reducing carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
"This
president has tremendous courage," Pruitt said Monday. "He put America
first and said to the rest of the world we are going to say no and exit
the Paris Accord. That was the right thing to do."
Environmental groups and public health advocates quickly derided the decision as short sighted.
"Trump
is not just ignoring the deadly cost of pollution, he's ignoring the
clean energy deployment that is rapidly creating jobs across the
country," said Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club.
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