EPA Formally Moves to Repeal Major Obama Power Rule

Via 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, framing it as the end of the “war on coal.”

The action formally starts implementing a top campaign promise from President Trump and a request that the fossil fuel industry, business community and Republicans — including Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general — have had for years.

It also begins to tear down the main pillar of Obama’s aggressive second-term climate change agenda, which sought to use executive authority to fight climate change after Congress failed to pass cap-and-trade legislation.

“The Obama administration pushed the bounds of their authority so far with the CPP that the Supreme Court issued a historic stay of the rule, preventing its devastating effects to be imposed on the American people while the rule is being challenged in court,” Pruitt said in a statement.

“We are committed to righting the wrongs of the Obama administration by cleaning the regulatory slate. Any replacement rule will be done carefully, properly, and with humility, by listening to all those affected by the rule.”

Environmentalists and Democrats have pledged to fight the rollback, and at least two Democratic state attorneys general have promised to sue the EPA to preserve the rule.

See the article here.