[1] Sierra Club Compass Blog, “The Clean Power Plan Was Unveiled Two Years Ago: What’s Next for this Climate Plan Under Trump and Pruitt?” He sued the EPA numerous times when he was Oklahoma attorney general.
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In California and the western United States, wildfires made more likely by climate change, continue to rage in the vineyards and forests.
Pruitt announced his intentions Monday in Kentucky, where he declared that the “war against coal is over”, according to the Washington Post.
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It’s “essential that the EPA address our country’s largest source of carbon pollution – existing fossil fuel-burning power plants – to mitigate climate change”, said Healey, a Democrat. Trump the populist has operated within constitutional lines better than his technocratic predecessor, who used tendentious readings of the law and sweeping bureaucratic actions to impose his policies on immigration, health care, college campuses and the environment.
But Trump has nominated a retired coal executive, Kenny Allen of Hopkins County, Ky., to fill one of the five vacancies on the TVA board.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was home in Kentucky Monday, but the man he brought with him was the one grabbing most of the headlines.
Meanwhile, Pruitt’s decision to throw it out will certainly face a number of legal challenges from environmental groups and state attorneys general.
Peabody Energy, which operates El Segundo and Lee Ranch mines in New Mexico, laid off workers and filed for bankruptcy past year after failed attempts to sell off its in-state assets and other properties.
More details on what will happen after the plan is withdrawn were not immediately available. The 2015 Clean Power Plan was expected to cut emissions by 32 percent by the year 2030.
The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to repeal a rule that limits greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Renewable energy is cheaper than ever, natural gas is in abundant supply, and the U.S. judiciary is firmly on the side of regulating carbon dioxide.
Dale Niezwaag, vice president of government relations for Basin Electric Power Cooperative, expects there to be some type of rule, given that the U.S. Supreme Court has said the EPA is responsible for regulating emissions.
In June, Trump announced that the US would pull out of the Paris Accord, an worldwide agreement that set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions. “He put America first and said to the rest of the world we are going to say no and exit the Paris Accord. That was the right thing to do”.
The coal industry employs 52,100 people – an increase of 2,100 jobs since January – though the solar and wind energy firms has greater numbers of employees.
Environmental organisations have come out quickly against the proposed withdrawal.
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Public Service Company of New Mexico said last spring it plans to shut down the coal-dependent Four Corners Power Plant near Farmington by 2022 and entirely wean its energy production off coal by 2031.
