The Trump administration yesterday came out with new rules scaling back Obama-era constraints on coal-fired power plants, striking at one of the former administration’s legacy programs to rein in climate-changing fossil-fuel emissions.
The Environmental Protection Agency called the Obama-era regulations on coal power plants “overly prescriptive and burdensome.”
The Trump administration plan broadly increases the leeway given states to decide how and how much to regulate coal power plants. The EPA says it “empowers states, promotes energy independence, and facilitates economic growth and job creation.”
Combined with the EPA’s proposal earlier this month to ease mileage requirements for vehicles, the move may actually increase the country’s climate-changing emissions, according to some former top EPA officials, environmental groups, and other opponents.
The Natural Resources Defense Council called the replacement proposal Trump’s “Dirty Power Plan.”
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