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Trump set to roll back Obama-era regulation on coal emissions Trump administration scraps Obama-era regulation on coal emissions
(about 3 hours later)
The Trump administration is set to unveil a proposed replacement for Obama-era climate change rules that will impose looser, state-based regulations on coal-fired power plants rather than pushing them towards closure. The Trump administration has put forward a greenhouse gas emissions plan that could boost output from coal-fired power plants rather than push them towards closure and result in as many as 1,400 premature deaths each year.
The new plan is likely to escalate greenhouse gas emissions, compared with its predecessor, at a time when scientists have warned drastic cuts are required to avoid dangerous runaway climate change that would ravage the lives of Americans and people around the world. Amid outcry from activists and a promise to sue from the attorney general of New York, one prominent environmentalist called the plan “a disaster for public health and the climate”.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is set to propose that individual states should decide how, or even if, they should stem carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants. The proposal, crafted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), dismantles Barack Obama’s signature climate change policy and replaces it with a system that relies on states to come up with ways to make power plants more efficient.
Donald Trump, who has pledged to end what he calls the “war on coal”, is expected to unveil the plan at an event in West Virginia, a major coal-producing state, on Tuesday. “The era of top-down, one-size-fits-all federal mandates is over,” said Andrew Wheeler, acting EPA administrator.
A 300-page document outlining the plan does not set any national target for greenhouse gas reductions. The amount of CO2 emitted from US power plants over the next decade will be at least 12 times higher than they would be under the Obama plan, the EPA documents show. The replacement plan also would also relax pollution rules for power plants that require upgrades. The new approach is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by up to 1.5% by 2030, the EPA said, should all states implement effective plans.
“This is all about coal at all costs,” said Gina McCarthy, who was EPA chief under Obama. “There is no other country in the world looking to coal for its future. They are looking to clean energy.” That is well below the 32% reduction target by 2030, from 2005 levels, set by Obama’s clean power plan. The Trump administration said the reductions would be “comparable” due to changes in the energy market.
McCarthy said the new climate plan would provide industry a “free pass to increase not just carbon pollution but also conventional smog and soot pollutants that will directly harm our health today, not to mention our children’s future”. Easing the pressure on industry will bolster coal’s fortunes over the next decade, compared with the clean power plan, as well as slightly reducing electricity prices.
The US is the second-largest emitter of CO2 in the world and any increase or even flatline in its emissions would make it extremely difficult for humanity to stave off punishing heatwaves, sea level rise and other consequences of climate change. It will also result in the release of more soot and smog-forming chemicals that will kill up to 1,400 Americans a year by 2030, EPA documents show. It will also cause an extra 40,000 cases of worsening asthma and 60,000 lost school days by 2030.
The Obama-era clean power plan imposed the first-ever national carbon pollution limits on coal plants and aimed to cut power sector CO2 emissions by 32% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. However, after legal challenges by a coalition of states, it was paused by the supreme court in 2016 and has never come into force. An analysis by the EPA last year showed the clean power plan would prevent about 4,500 premature deaths a year by 2030.
The Trump administration has argued the EPA exceeded its authority by imposing the rules and claimed that it would prove ruinous to coal-producing areas. Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, said there were “very aggressive” programs to ensure Americans are not harmed by air pollution, adding that the Obama policy was an “overreach” that exceeded EPA authority.
Under Trump, the US has announced its intention to exit the Paris climate accords, pare back vehicle emission standards and open up more lands and waters to oil and gas drilling. Environmentalists immediately called the new plan the “dirty power scam”. Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, said: “Trump’s latest scheme to bail out the coal industry is a disaster for public health and the climate.”
Donald Trump The clean power plan set the first national US pollution limits on coal plants but has never come into force, after a coalition of states challenged it in court. In 2016, the US supreme court paused the plan ahead of legal arguments.
The plan was the centerpiece in an effort to lower emissions and help meet international climate change goals set out in the Paris agreement, which Trump has pledged to leave.
Barbara Underwood, attorney general of New York, promised to sue the federal government should the new EPA plan be enacted.
“Climate change is real, no matter how much this administration tries to deny it,” she said. “We need strong, immediate action to drastically cut climate change pollution and promote affordable, clean and sustainable energy – not foot dragging and backtracking that seeks to prop up dirty, expensive power plants.”
The new plan would put the “health of all Americans at risk, and especially those who are most vulnerable, including children, older adults and people with asthma and heart disease”, said Harold Wimmer, president of the American Lung Association.
The coal industry welcomed the move, which follows attempts by the Trump administration to pare back emissions standards for vehicles and throw open more of America’s lands and waters to mining and drilling.
Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association, said: “The policy put forward by the previous administration was an illegal attempt to impose a political agenda on the country’s power system.”
Climate change
Trump administrationTrump administration
US politicsUS politics
PollutionPollution
Climate change
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