EPA chief Scott Pruitt tells coal miners he will repeal power plant rule Tuesday: ‘The war against coal is over’

October 10, 2017 3oliver

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt at the White House in June. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told coal miners in Kentucky on Monday that he will move to repeal a rule limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, assuring them, “The war against coal is over.”

Speaking at an event in Hazard, Ky., with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Pruitt said his agency will publish the new proposed rule Tuesday.

“Tomorrow, in Washington, D.C., I’ll be a signing a proposed rule to withdraw the so-called Clean Power Plan of the past administration, and thus begin the effort to withdraw that rule,” Pruitt said.

[Trump administration will propose repealing Obama’s key effort to combat climate change]

A 43-page draft of the proposal, which was obtained by The Washington Post and other news outlets last week, argues that the agency overstepped its legal authority in seeking to force utilities to reduce carbon emissions outside their actual facilities to meet federal emissions targets. It does not offer a replacement plan for regulating emissions of carbon dioxide, which the Supreme Court has ruled that the EPA is obligated to do. Rather, the agency said it plans to seek public input on how best to cut emissions from natural-gas and coal-fired power plants.

EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said in an interview Monday that Pruitt chose to speak about his plans in Kentucky because coal workers have a direct economic stake in policies aimed at curbing emissions from coal burning. “He’s speaking directly to people in coal country about how the rule negatively affected the whole industry,” Bowman said.

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Reaction to the announcement was sharply divided, with environmental and public health advocates decrying it, and industry groups welcoming the move.

“With this news, Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt will go down in infamy for launching one of the most egregious attacks ever on public health, our climate, and the safety of every community in the United States,” Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement. “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.”

National Rural Electric Cooperative Association chief executive Jim Matheson, one of the utility groups that challenged the Obama-era rule, said rescinding the regulation would provide his members with the flexibility to use their existing plants to provide “reliable, affordable power” to local customers. Sixty-two percent of coop-owned generation is coal-fired, according to the association, while natural gas accounts for 26 percent, nuclear power 10 percent and renewables 2 percent.

“That’s what we’re really looking for, is flexibility so they can meet their individual consumers’ needs,” Matheson said Monday.

Some critics of the rule said Monday that they were open to a more limited regulation aimed at addressing carbon emissions from power plants.

Ross Eisenberg, vice president of energy and resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, said in a statement that his group “agrees with the EPA’s conclusion that this regulation was broader than what the law allows, which is why we joined 28 states in challenging it in federal court.”

“At the same time, we recognize the need for a policy to address greenhouse gas emissions,” Eisenberg added, saying “The NAM supports a greenhouse gas policy going forward that is narrowly tailored and consistent with the Clean Air Act.”

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The Clean Power Plan, which aimed to decrease the nation’s carbon pollution by about one-third by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, has long been subject to intense legal fights — and that much is unlikely to change.

During his time as Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt joined other opponents in suing the Obama administration, arguing that it did not have legal authority to force states to form detailed plans to reduce CO2 emissions from such sources as coal-fired power plants. Pruitt sided with industry officials who insisted that the EPA’s regulations would unfairly force power-plant owners to shut down or essentially subsidize competing clean-energy industries.

[One of the oldest climate change experiments has led to a troubling conclusion]

Environmental groups and other supporters argued on the side of the Obama White House, saying the administration had standing under the Clean Air Act to put in place the effort, which they called a much-needed measure to help nudge the nation toward cleaner sources of energy and improve public health.

Early last year, the Supreme Court blocked the regulation’s implementation after 28 states and a host of other opponents challenged its legality. Its 5-to-4 decision did not address the merits of the lawsuit, came just days before the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Meanwhile, a 10-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in September 2016 heard oral arguments on the case, but did not issue a ruling before the Trump administration took office and requested time to reconsider the rule.

[EPA inspector general expands investigation of Pruitt’s use of military, private flights]

Monday’s announcement that the EPA would seek to rescind the Clean Power Plan, with no promise of replacing it, brought promises of even more legal fights ahead. Attorneys general of multiple states — California, New York and Massachusetts among them — vowed to challenge the Trump administration’s decision. A 2009 EPA determination is still in place finding that carbon dioxide constitutes a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, so the agency will have to justify how it is complying with that finding as it rolls back the existing regulation.

“Along with our partners, Massachusetts fought for years to put this rule in place, and we will be suing to protect the Clean Power Plan from the climate change deniers in this administration who are trying to move us backwards,” Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said in a statement Monday.

The EPA’s latest proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan comes months after President Trump issued a directive instructing the Environmental Protection Agency to begin rewriting the controversial 2015 regulation, as part of a broader effort to obliterate his predecessor’s efforts to make combating climate change a top government priority.

A central piece of Obama’s environmental legacy, the Clean Power Plan aims to slash the greenhouse-gas emissions that scientists agree are fueling the planet’s rapid warming. It also was an integral part of the commitment U.S. officials made as part of a historic international climate accord signed in late 2015 in Paris, from which Trump has said he