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EPA Announces Repeal of Major Obama-Era Carbon Emissions Rule (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source: The Trump administration announced Monday that it would take formal steps to repeal President Barack Obama's signature policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, setting up a bitter fight over the future of America's efforts to tackle global warming. At an event in eastern Kentucky, Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said that his predecessors had departed from regulatory norms in crafting the Clean Power Plan, which was finalized in 2015 and would have pushed states to move away from coal in favor of sources of electricity that produce fewer carbon emissions. The repeal proposal, which will be filed in the Federal Register on Tuesday, fulfills a promise President Trump made to eradicate his predecessor's environmental legacy. Eliminating the Clean Power Plan makes it less likely the United States can fulfill its promise as part of the Paris climate agreement to ratchet down emissions that are warming the planet and contributing to heat waves and sea-level rise. Mr. Trump has vowed to abandon that international accord.

In announcing the repeal, Mr. Pruitt made many of the same arguments that he had made for years to Congress and in lawsuits: that the Obama administration exceeded its legal authority in an effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. (Last year, the Supreme Court blocked the rule from taking effect while courts assessed those lawsuits.) A leaked draft of the repeal proposal asserts that the country would save $33 billion by not complying with the regulation and rejects the health benefits the Obama administration had calculated from the original rule.

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  1. House built on Sand by sycodon · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Most of Obama's signature programs have been built on a foundation of sand. Executive Orders, Policy changes, etc.

    The result is that they can and have been easily reversed.

    Now if you want to re-instate such programs and policies, do it the right way and come to the table prepared to abandon the hysteria and alarmism and actually deal in good faith when measuring the effects vs good economic policy. Then real legislation can be created to lock in the policies.

    I believe that most of the Envirowacko's agendas can be restated and implemented in economic terms that don't include doomsday scenarios and zealotry.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.