President unwinds climate policies
WASHINGTON — Declaring an end to what he’s called “the war on coal,” President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that eliminates numerous restrictions on fossil fuel production, breaking with leaders across the globe who have embraced cleaner energy sources.
The order makes good on Mr. Trump’s campaign pledge to unravel former President Barack Obama’s efforts to curb global warming, eliminating nearly a dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production, especially oil, natural gas and coal.
Environmental activists denounced the plan. But Mr. Trump said the effort would spark “a new energy revolution” and lead to “unbelievable” American prosperity.
“That is what this is all about: bringing back our jobs, bringing back our dreams and making America wealthy again,” Mr. Trump said during a
signing ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters, where he was flanked by over a dozen coal miners.
Throughout the election, Mr. Trump accused the former president of waging “a war” against coal as he campaigned in economically depressed swaths of states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
“My administration is putting an end to the war on coal,” the president said.
But Mr. Trump’s promise is seen as running counter to market forces, and Democrats, environmental groups and scientists said the executive order ignores the realities of climate change.
“Gutting the Clean Power Plan is a colossal mistake and defies science itself. Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump’s mind, but nowhere else,” said California Gov. Jerry Brown.
Indeed, Mr. Brown and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo are moving fast to consolidate the power of several other states that are united on climate action.
While Republicans have blamed Obama-era environmental regulations for the loss of coal jobs, federal data show that U.S. mines have been shedding jobs for decades as a result of increasing automation and competition from natural gas.
Another factor is the plummeting cost of solar panels and wind turbines, which now can produce emissions-free electricity cheaper than burning coal.
According to an Energy Department analysis released in January, coal mining now accounts for fewer than 75,000 U.S. jobs. By contrast, renewable energy now accounts for more than 650,000 U.S. jobs.
At best, according to government data, coal production will increase by about 5 million tons a year by 2040 out of 800 million tons overall under Mr. Trump’s order.
Only Illinois Basin coal is forecast to increase over time.
Mr. Trump’s order initiates a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. The rule — Mr. Obama’s signature effort to curb carbon emissions — has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by GOP-led states and those who profit from burning oil, coal and gas.
The order also lifts a 14month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands. The Obama administration had imposed a threeyear moratorium on new federal coal leases, arguing that the $1 billion-a-year program must be modernized to ensure a fair financial return to taxpayers and address climate change.
The order covers a range of other Obama-era rules, including repeal of measures to consider the “social cost” of carbon emissions in all regulatory actions and crack down on methane emissions at oil and gas wells. The rule also eliminates an Obama-era rule restricting fracking on public lands and a separate rule that requires energy companies to provide data on methane emissions at oil and gas operations.
Business groups said the rules were overly burdensome.
Rewriting the Clean Power Plan and other rules is set to take years and will face legal challenges from environmental groups and Democratic-leaning states.
The Trump administration has yet to decide whether it intends to withdraw from the international climate agreement signed in Paris, which sets ambitious goals to reduce carbon pollution.
Mr. Trump has called global warming a “hoax” invented by the Chinese.
Meanwhile, another Obama-era regulation was in the crosshairs. Mr. Trump was expected to sign into law a bill passed by the House on Tuesday to block an online privacy rule and empower internet service providers to snoop on users without their consent and sell the data to marketers.