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Trump’s team takes aim at a major climate rule
The pro-pollution presidency rolls on.
Patrick Reis was the senior politics and ideas editor at Vox. He previously worked at Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, Politico, National Journal, and Seattle’s Real Change News. As a reporter and editor, he has worked on coverage of campaign politics, economic policy, the federal death penalty, climate change, financial regulation, and homelessness.
Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration is attacking Biden-era policies aimed at limiting air and climate pollution from power plants, part of a broader bid to stimulate the fossil fuel industry at the expense of the environment — and the future.
What’s the latest? The head of President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency today said the agency would begin the (lengthy) process of repealing a pair of environmental regulations on coal and natural-gas power plants.
What do the rules do?
- The first regulated power plants’ carbon emissions, which drive climate change. The administration did not propose a replacement rule, meaning the proposal, CNN reports, would “effectively leave carbon emissions from US power plants unregulated.”
- The second tightened regulations on mercury and other toxins that, above certain levels, are hazardous for human health.
What’s next? The administration is required to go through a formal process for changing rules, including a public comment period. More significantly, environmental groups are certain to sue to block the rule changes, arguing they violate the nation’s environmental laws and don’t follow the best available science. That means the rules’ fates are likely to be decided by the courts.
What’s the big picture? Scientists warn that human-driven climate change is already making the planet less hospitable to human life and that — absent major corrective action — it will continue to do so at an accelerating rate. The Trump administration is instead taking action to make the problem worse.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
There’s no particularly compelling reason to share these amazing photographs of birds today, but we shouldn’t need a special reason to take time to appreciate the world we’ve been gifted. So, to that end, here are last year’s winners of the Audubon Photography Awards. Thanks so much for reading, have a great night, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow.
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