Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt announced in Kentucky on Monday that he will sign an order repealing the Clean Power Plan tomorrow. “The war on coal is over,” Pruitt told the crowd.
The Obama-era policy, which would have cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by 32 percent by 2030, was hailed in 2015 as the strongest climate action taken by any sitting United States president. The plan was expected to save tens of billions in climate and health costs, and save consumers an average of $85 a year on electricity.
The Trump administration has long-opposed the Clean Power Plan, and the president himself called it “a crushing attack on American industry.” Trump signed an executive order in March directing the EPA to review the rule, and the agency argues that the Clean Power Plan “exceeds the EPA’s statutory authority.”
The official repeal proposal will be filed with the Federal Registrar tomorrow, and it will then go through a formal public comment period, and environmental groups will no doubt challenge the repeal in court.
“The damage caused by Trump’s willful ignorance will now have myriads of human faces, because he’s proposing to throw out a plan that would prevent thousands of premature deaths and tens of thousands of childhood asthma attacks every year,” the Sierra Club’s executive director, Michael Brune, said in a statement. “Make no mistake, the fight against this dangerous decision is only just beginning. We will mobilize to make our voices heard when the EPA conducts its legally-required comment period and we will challenge any dirty strategy that violates the Clean Air Act in court.”
