Editor’s note: President Trump signed the executive order undoing Obama-administration efforts to address climate change, including the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, this afternoon.
An Obama-era regulation seeking to reduce carbon pollution and slow global temperature increases is next on the chopping block for the Trump administration.
Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt told ABC News over the weekend that the President will sign an executive order Tuesday to dismantle the Clean Power Plan.
The order will “address the past administration’s effort to kill jobs across this country through the Clean Power Plan,” Pruitt said. He added that the move is “about making sure that we have a pro-growth and pro-environment approach to how we do regulation in this country.”
As the Attorney General of Oklahoma, Pruitt sought to kill the Clean Power Plan. He joined several states in a lawsuit against the regulation, arguing that the EPA exceeded its authority and the rules were unconstitutional.
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the case last September. The US Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Clean Power Plan from taking effect until the lower court issued its ruling.
The regulation is aimed at reducing US carbon emissions by roughly one-third over the next decade by requiring fossil fuel energy plants to cut their emissions.
Its repeal, however, would have ramification well beyond national borders. The Clean Power Plan also serves as the blueprint by which the US plans to fulfill its obligations under the 2015 UN Paris Climate Agreement.
The treaty compels nations to submit individual plans to reduce carbon emissions. It was ratified by 140 nations, including three of the four largest polluting nations: the US, China, and India.
Invoking the terminology of his boss, Pruitt called the climate accord a “bad deal” on Sunday.
“We’ve penalized ourselves through lost jobs while China and India didn’t take steps to address the issue internationally,” he alleged, despite both foreign nations also agreeing to reduce emissions under the agreement.
Pruitt went on to describe Trump’s forthcoming executive order as a “long term” strategy to boost the fossil fuel industry, and bring back coal jobs.
In the first two months of his administration, President Trump has positioned himself as an ally to polluters. He’s worked with the Republican congress to repeal transparency and environmental regulations on coal and oil mining companies. Trump also reversed prior Obama administration policy, and approved two controversial pipeline projects: Dakota Access and Keystone XL.
The President, along with nearly the entire GOP delegation in congress, has repeatedly cast doubt on the scientific consensus that human behavior, specifically carbon emissions, are contributing to the rapidly warming planet.
In 2012 he alleged on Twitter: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”
Since then, global temperatures have set a record new high in each succeeding year from 2014 through last year.
Faced with the mounting evidence of global warming, fewer and fewer Americans are subscribing to Trump-endorsed denialism.
A Gallup poll released on Monday shows that a record number of Americans described themselves as “Concerned Believers” in global warming.
Half of American identified with that sentiment for the first time — up from 37 percent in 2015.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy