USA TODAY International Edition
Trump’s energy order diverts climate focus
Environmentalists protest president’s ‘ new era’ of production
“Thankfully, for all his bluster, the best Trump can do is delay America’s inevitable transition to clean energy, but he can’t stop it.” Annie Leonard, Greenpeace USA
President Trump’s executive order on American energy independence is a sweeping repudiation of Obama- era environmental initiatives, substituting a strategy of combating climate change through international cooperation for an America- first energy policy.
Trump proclaimed the order as “the start of a new era of American energy production” that would “restore economic freedom and allow our workers to thrive, compete and succeed on a level playing field for the first time in a long time.”
Trump spoke at a signing ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday on a stage with a dozen coal miners.
Trump’s order attempts to roll back Obama- era policies on power plant emission limits, coal mining on federal lands, fracking and methane. Because most of those rules were finalized under Obama, the Trump administration would have to start from the beginning on a rulemaking process to dismantle those regulations.
Trump’s order takes aim at the entire framework of climate change action under the previous administration.
Under Obama, federal agencies were required to plan for and mitigate the future effects of climate change, treat it as a national security issue and attempt to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions by 40%. All of those policies are rescinded by Trump’s order.
Environmental activists deplored the order.
Annie Leonard of Greenpeace USA said it showed Trump is “just a fossil fuel industry stooge with a presidential pen.”
She cast the executive order as a temporary setback. “Thankfully, for all his bluster, the best Trump can do is delay America’s inevitable transition to clean energy, but he can’t stop it,” she said.
The White House said
Trump’s action will provide the framework for a new emphasis on more energy production and more jobs.
Despite relaxing environmental standards, the White House argued that its energy policies could be good for the environment in the long term.
“The president strongly believes that protecting the environment and promoting our economy are not mutually exclusive goals,” spokesman Sean Spic- er said Tuesday. “This executive order will help to ensure that we have clean air and clean water without sacrificing economic growth and job creation.”
The order will ask all federal agencies to identify obstacles to domestic energy production, then report back to the White House for future action.
Trump said the order is “returning power to the states, where that power belongs.”
The order makes good on Trump’s promise to end what he called a “war on coal” and to bring back industry jobs. “I made them this promise. We will put our miners back to work,” Trump said Tuesday.
“The war on coal is over,” Vice President Pence said at the executive order signing ceremony Tuesday, flanked by Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Former vice president Al Gore called the order “a misguided step away from a sustainable, carbonfree future for ourselves and generations to come.”
“No one man or group can stop the encouraging and escalating momentum we are experiencing in the fight to protect our planet,” Gore said.
Former vice president Al Gore called the order “a misguided step away from a sustainable, carbon- free future for ourselves and generations to come.”