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News > U.S.

Trump to Lift Hurdles Blocking New Coal-Fired Power Plants

  • Steam rises from a pile of coal at a mine in Bishop, West Virginia, U.S. on May 19, 2018.

    Steam rises from a pile of coal at a mine in Bishop, West Virginia, U.S. on May 19, 2018. | Photo: Reuters FILE

Published 7 December 2018
Opinion

U.S. President Donald Trump seeks to eliminate regulations requiring new coal-fired power plants to use technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions.

U.S. President Donald Trump Administration took aim at Obama-era environmental policies Thursday, proposing to remove hurdles for the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

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As part of an agenda to ramp up domestic energy production, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed rolling back a rule that requires new power plants to capture their carbon dioxide emissions.

By doing so, Trump's Administration opens the door, in the coming years, for new plants fired by fossil fuels.

The EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler stated that the new policy would encourage cleaner coal investments in the country. However, energy-related analysts disagree, noting that many North American power utilities have already turned to cheaper natural gas and renewables energies.

"No number of regulatory revocations, or empty campaign pledges to coal miners, will change the movement toward clean energy," Kenneth Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, said according to Perfil.

Since taking office in January 2017, Trump has attacked environmental protections to maximize production of domestic fossil fuels.

Lifting barriers to build new coal plants, however, clashes with contemporary scientific evidence and global efforts to curb climate change.

"[The proposal] is nothing more than another thoughtless attempt by the Trump Administration to prop up their backwards and false narrative about reviving coal at the expense of science, public safety, and reality," Mary Anne Hitt, senior director of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, said according to Mining.com.

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