Trump to undo Obama climate policies
WASHINGTON. - US President Donald Trump was expected to sign an executive order yesterday to undo a slew of Obama-era climate change regulations, a move meant to bolster domestic energy production but which environmentalists have vowed to challenge in court.
The decree, dubbed the “Energy Independence” order, will seek to undo former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan requiring states to slash carbon emissions from power plants — a critical element in helping the United States meet its commitments to a global climate change accord agreed by nearly 200 countries in Paris in December 2015.
It will also rescind a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, reverse rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production, and reduce the weight of climate change in federal agencies’ assessments of new regulations.
“We’re going to go in a different direction,” a senior White House official told reporters ahead of Tuesday’s order.
“The previous administration devalued workers with their policies. We can protect the environment while providing people with work.”
Trump will sign the order at the EPA with the agency’s Administrator Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Tuesday afternoon.
The wide-ranging order is the boldest yet in Trump’s broader push to cut environmental regulation to revive the oil and gas drilling and coal mining industries, a promise he made repeatedly during his campaign for the presidency.
“I cannot tell you how many jobs the executive order is going to create but I can tell you that it provides confidence in this administration’s commitment to the coal industry,” Kentucky Coal Association president Tyler White told Reuters.
Environmental groups have promised to challenge the orders.
“These actions are an assault on American values and they endanger the health, safety and prosperity of every American,” said billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, the head of activist group NextGen Climate.
Meanwhile, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has implored the world to continue the fight against climate change despite the United States’ decision to backtrack on its agreements.
The founder and chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation in his keynote address at the 10th Forum for the Future of Agriculture in Brussels yesterday said the Paris Agreement has sealed the pact to fight climate change.