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Environment Groups Vow to Fight EPA After Clean Power Plan Axed

  • Trump administration is known and criticised for cracking down on climate policies, from purging vital information from the EPA's website to pulling out of the crucial Paris agreement in June.

    Trump administration is known and criticised for cracking down on climate policies, from purging vital information from the EPA's website to pulling out of the crucial Paris agreement in June. | Photo: Reuters

Published 9 October 2017
Opinion

The 2015 Clean Power Plan was expected to cut emissions by 32 percent by the year 2030.

Environmentalists and advocacy groups have vowed to fight the Environment Protection Agency's, or EPA, latest decision to repeal the Clean Power Plan.

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During an event in Kentucky, Scott Pruitt, the head of EPA, announced axing of the key Obama-era policy which was designed to reduce green house emissions that helps control global warming.

"The war on coal is over," he said. "Tomorrow in Washington, D.C., I will be signing a proposed rule to roll back the Clean Power Plan. No better place to make that announcement than Hazard, Ky."

The power plants using coal and natural gas are responsible for nearly one-third of carbon dioxide emissions released by the United States. The 2015 Clean Power Plan was expected to cut emissions by 32 percent by the year 2030.

The Trump administration has been criticized for its rolling back if climate policies, ranging from purging vital information from the EPA's website to pulling out of the COP Paris agreement in June. The agreement is aimed at limiting warming temperatures to 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels, and also shift all nations towards sustainable growth practices.  

According to Axios, Trump administration might open a window for the public to comment for a new policy to be put in place to reduce carbon emissions, but no matter what the 2030 goal will be impacted "by several months if not a year or more."

Some of the other climate related projects that Trump has proposed to eliminate are Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that coordinates global climate research, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that forms the basis of international climate negotiations like the Paris Agreement as well as climate programs at agencies like the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Bruce Ho of the National Resource Defense Council said the governors of at least 9 states who are a part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative will continue reducing the emissions by 30 percent per the Clean Power Plan. The initiative helped cut emissions to 79.2 million tons last year and are on course to reach 2030 target.

"Pruitt's attempt is the latest in the Trump administration's dangerous campaign of climate change denial, and is a wake-up call for state and local leaders: if you want to protect your citizens, it's time to take action yourselves because the Trump-Pruitt EPA has shown it's more interested in protecting polluters than the health of Americans," Ho wrote in a blog post.

"Instead of addressing one of the most significant problems facing mankind, the administration thumbed its nose at science, and now at the law," Ken Kimmel, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, USC, said.

"Rather than positioning America in the global clean energy marketplace, the administration will stand on the sidelines," USC said in a statement.

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