Much to the chagrin of econuts around the world, hopes that President Trump might renege on his plan to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords were dashed this week.
From the Rose Garden, Trump joined EPA administrator Scott Pruitt in announcing that the administration will be tossing to the curb Obama’s infamous ‘Clean Power Plan’.
First things first, the plan gave the EPA undo and unconstitutional power over the states.
Second, it created onerous carbon emission regulations design to effectively kill the coal industry and place an overwhelming burden on other fossil fuel industries.
But the big kicker is that the CPP was the linchpin in Obama’s pledge to take the lead on the Paris Climate Accords.
So essentially any terms of compliance we might have offered to the Accords just got gutted.
Here’s more from The Hill…
The Trump administration formally proposed to scrap the Obama administration’s signature climate change rule for power plants.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt signed the notice Tuesday, arguing that former President Barack Obama’s 2015 rule, dubbed the Clean Power Plan, exceeds the agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act.
He previewed the action Monday at a coal equipment business in Kentucky, calling it the end of the “war on coal.”
The action formally starts work on a top campaign promise from President Trump, delivering a win to fossil fuel companies, business groups and Republicans — including Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general — who fought the climate plan from the start.
The move begins to tear down the main pillar of Obama’s second-term climate change agenda, where he sought to use executive authority to fight climate change after Congress declined to pass cap-and-trade legislation.
Trump in June said he would pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, pulling back another part of Obama’s climate work. The Clean Power Plan was the centerpiece of America’s commitment to the Paris deal.
