Pruitt seeks to slash climate efforts
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In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt is taking dramatic steps that will hinder the country’s action to reduce greenhouse emissions.
Pruitt himself announced on Monday that he will officially begin taking steps to repeal the Clean Power Plan, the landmark climate change rule adopted under former President Barack Obama.
The rule was one of the key components of the US efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, whose goal was to cut emissions from the electrical sector by 32 percent before 2030.
In the U.S., the electricity division is the single largest contributor of greenhouse gases. Since coal-fired plants are the ones that pollute the most, Pruitt, who has been working closely together with the fossil fuel industry, has been advocating to get rid of the rule, although recognizing that it would hurts the coal industry.
“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a legal responsibility to significantly reduce carbon pollution from power plants. This responsibility can only be fulfilled through a strong, effective and science-based policy like the Clean Power Plan. Repealing it simply won’t cut it. That is why I will do everything in my power to defend the Clean Power Plan,” said California Attorney General Becerra.
“California has already shown that we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants while growing our economy, and we refuse to let this Administration shirk its responsibility at the national level. I grew up knowing that I could breathe clean air. I want all parents to be able to say that their children will breathe clean air, too.”
Tax credits
As if undoing one of the most important policies to minimize the impact of climate change was not enough, Pruitt also foreshadowed some of his other plans in the near future.
Pruitt said during an event at the Kentucky Farm Bureau that the federal government should rescind federal tax credits for the wind and solar power industries in the U.S.
“I would do away with these incentives that we give to wind and solar,” Pruitt said. “I’d let them stand on their own and compete against coal and natural gas and other sources, and let utilities make real-time market decisions on those types of things as opposed to being propped up by tax incentives and other types of credits that occur, both at the federal level and state level.”
Currently, the wind power industry gets a tax credit of 1.84 cents per kilowatt-hour produced, while companies that build solar power systems can get credits for 30 percent of their investments.
According to The Hill, the current tax credits for wind industry are set to expire in 2019, with solar expiring in 2022. Although Pruitt called for ending the credits, he admitted that the final decision will have to be made in the legislature and will not be an EPA decision. Pruitt also didn’t mention that both oil and coal industries additionally benefit from similar tax credits.