Trump-era fossil fuel orders revoked
WASHINGTON — Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Friday revoked Trump administration orders that promoted fossil fuel development on public lands and waters, and issued a separate directive that prioritizes climate change in agency decisions.
The moves are part of a government-wide effort by the Biden administration to address climate change ahead of a virtual global summit on climate change that President Joe Biden is hosting next week.
The orders revoke Trumpera directives that boosted coal, oil and gas leasing on federal lands and promoted what Trump called “energy dominance”î in the United States. Haaland also rescinded a Trump order intended to increase oil drilling in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. restoring its nuclear deal with world powers after an attack on its main enrichment site.
A top official said only a few grams an hour of uranium gas would be enriched up to 60 percent purity — triple its previous level but at a quantity far lower than what the Islamic Republic had been able to produce. Iran also is enriching at an above-ground facility at its Natanz nuclear site already visited by international inspectors, not deep underground.
The narrow scope of the new enrichment provides Iran with a way to quickly de-escalate if it choses, experts say, but time is narrowing. An Iranian presidential election looms on the horizon as Tehran already threatens to limit international inspections. Israel, suspected of carrying out Sunday’s sabotage at Natanz, also could act again amid a long-running shadow war between the two Middle East rivals.
In a report released on Friday, the department’s inspector general concluded that those requests were “inconsistentî with the regulations.” But, because Pompeo is no longer a federal employee and not subject to federal disciplinary or other measures, it did not call for any action against the former secretary who left office on Jan. 20 at the end of the Trump administration.
Instead, it recommended that the State Department clarify its policies to better define tasks that are inappropriate for staffers under the ethics rules and make it easier to report alleged violations.