President Trump will take the most significant step yet in obliterating his predecessor’s environmental record Tuesday, instructing federal regulators to rewrite key rules curbing U.S. carbon emissions.
The sweeping executive order also seeks to lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing and remove the requirement that federal officials consider the impact of climate change when making decisions.
The order sends an unmistakable signal that just as President Barack Obama sought to weave climate considerations into every aspect of the federal government, Trump is hoping to rip that approach out by its roots. (our emphasis)Encouraging more fossil fuel extraction while removing Federal requirements for climate considerations in policy development represents the opening round in the Trump regime's efforts to roll back advances in addressing climate change and environmental quality. Still being debated is whether the U.S. will withdraw from the 2015 Paris agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, there are some legal obstacles to what the Trump regime would like to do:
The centerpiece of the new presidential directive, telling the Environmental Protection Agency to begin rewriting the 2015 regulation that limits greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, will trigger a laborious rulemaking process and a possible legal fight.
The agency must first get permission from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where the rule is tied up in litigation, to revisit the matter. Then, agency officials will have to justify reaching the opposite conclusion of the Obama EPA, which argued it was technically feasible and legally warranted to reduce carbon pollution by about one-third by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.Keep in mind, this is all purportedly to resuscitate a coal industry that is non- competitive with other energy sources and whose only path to solvency is to shed jobs in favor of automation. It's also helpful to remember the coal industry's financial backing of Rump, and in particular the largesse of one Robert Murray of Murray Energy Corporation. Remember him? Well, even this despicable slug admits Rump isn't bringing back coal jobs. But if he can make it easier to pollute streams and increase your profit margin, he's their guy.
This is what happens when a bankrupt ideology, in combination with a bankrupt industry, finds a morally and intellectually bankrupt dolt to do its bidding. We'll be lucky if we can limit the damage in the next 2 to 4 years.
