Will Trump’s Move To Destroy Obama’s Climate Actions Succeed?

On March 28, after 3 months in office, Trump took his most drastic step yet toward the destruction of environmental policies, when he signed a sweeping executive order intended to roll back almost all of Obama’s climate change actions.

Trump said during the signing that the order will “eliminate federal overreach” & “start a new era of production & job creation.”

“My action today is the latest in steps to grow American jobs,” he added, saying his order is “ending the theft of prosperity.”

Making America Dirty Again

In reality, Trump wants to give a huge bailout to his buddies in the fossil fuel industry while Making America Dirty Again.

Trump does not accept the scientific consensus (*Or, as I personally believe,

he’s choosing to ignore science for his own selfish motives*) on climate change, & has famously claimed it’s a hoax created by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing less competitive. Scott Pruitt, his chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has also strongly rejected the established science of climate change, thus contradicting the EPA’s website.

In fact, 97% of scientists agree that climate change is both real & human-caused. But it’s in the financial interests of Trump to choose to disagree with them. 🙁

What Does The Executive Order Mandate?

“Energy Independence,” the title of Trump’s executive order, directs the EPA to start the legal process of withdrawing & rewriting the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s signature domestic climate policy initiative. These 2015 regulations were designed to reduce carbon pollution from power plants, the nation’s largest source of such pollution, while maintaining energy reliability & affordability. They were the first-ever national standards to address carbon pollution from power plants.

But it’s not just about the Clean Power Plan. Trump & his buddies have also tacked on other rules & regulations, touching nearly a dozen Obama-era climate & environmental policies.

These include:

• Repealing rules regarding fracking on public lands;
• Repealing rules regarding coal leases on federal lands;
• Rescinding an order requiring agencies to consider the impact of climate change in their environmental permitting process;
• Making it easier to flare methane in oil & gas operations on federal land;
• Getting rid of a federal flood risk management standard;
• Rescinding the Obama-era executive action designed to promote energy efficiency in federal buildings.

This horrific & destructive order is the single biggest attack on climate action in U.S. history.

Will Trump’s Executive Order Succeed?

The centerpiece of the order, directing the EPA to rewrite the Clean Power Plan, will trigger a huge rule making process & a legal fight. For one thing, the Clean Power Plan hasn’t even been implemented yet, since it’s under a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court. Once that’s removed, agency officials will have to justify reaching a conclusion in opposition to that of the Obama EPA, which argued that reducing carbon pollution by about one-third by 2030, compared to 2005 levels, was both legally warranted & technically feasible.

“So, for the president, even if he would like to revoke the Clean Power Plan, he doesn’t have legal authority to do that,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, a partner at the Bracewell law firm which opposes the Obama-era rule.

So that could take years to implement, even if it’s possible.

But Trump is signaling that he wants to destroy the very idea of climate protection, to rip that approach out by its roots.

It’s also clear that Trump’s campaign promises to bring back coal jobs & revitalize the shrinking industry have no basis in reality.

Coal mining jobs have dropped in the U.S., from 87,755 in 2008, to around

65,971 in 2015, but this decrease was unrelated to Obama’s regulations. Instead, both the production of natural gas & an increase in automation are responsible. Thankfully, the market for dirty coal keeps decreasing. Coal isn’t coming back.

But almost all the other aspects of the executive order, the ones Trump tacked on to the Clean Power Plan, could take effect soon.

However, in rolling back Obama’s regulations, the Trump administration will also have to contend with years of established environmental law. A 2007 Supreme Court ruling, for example,  found that the EPA has authority to regulate carbon dioxide. If the  EPA chooses to renege on that authority, it’s likely that the agency will be challenged in court. The same goes for other rulings.

Environmental groups are gearing for many long legal battles, to ensure that Trump’s moves to destroy Obama’s climate actions do not succeed.

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I, for one, HOPE & PRAY, he fails, just like everything else he’s tried to do so far. I swore I wouldn’t talk politics on this blog, but this is a much too important issue to ignore.

He, whom I have nicknamed, TRUMPTY DUMPTY, is taking us back to the stone ages! The world is changing & he can’t accept that because he is

basically lazy. If he can make money, the easy way, why do anything to benefit anyone else??? It would mean a bit of extra work.  I believe he is a DINOSAUR & they are extinct!  He may not care about the planet he leaves for his grandkids, but I care about mine!

I hope this information resonates with you as much as it did me. I realize I may alienate some people because of this post, but it is way past time that everyone of us opens our eyes & does our part to save our planet! At the moment, it’s the only one we have!

Have a great day!