Trump Plans to Dismantle Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency Plans
Recently, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that aims in dismantling on the former President Barack Obama’s major environmental protection agency (EPA) plans, but according to two people who are familiar with the White House plans, it will have almost no immediate legal effect.
The order that was signed goes far beyond a targeted plan to dismantle the measures of blocking coal leasing and greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Some of these changes might happen immediately, but others might take years to implement. According to the administration, the executive orders discussed could not undo the policies immediately but would direct Trump’s team to begin the long process required for the said executive orders.
The Trump administration sees to it that its new rules are crucial in making coal-industry jobs possible and making America an energy-independent country. However, some people disagree and say it’s unlikely that this order can achieve those goals. Among those individuals who are concerned about the risks of this long-term climate change, the dismantling of the order has been viewed as a direct attack and an example of the president’s particular dislike towards the Environmental Protection Agency.
Donald Trump Prepares to Take Massive Steps to Change EPA
Environmentalists said that Mr. Trump’s action would weaken the international leadership that the U.S. has played for years in addressing the climate change and encouraging other countries to reduce the heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that have become a major issue in some countries.
However, Trump will have a capable ally implementing his order on the EPA. Mr. Scott Pruitt, who was confirmed to his new position this month, is expected to start in the long process of changing the major environmental rules on clean water, air pollution, and climate change. During his former job as an attorney general at Oklahoma, he has gained an extensive knowledge and experience with the complexities of the EPA regulation and took part in 14 lawsuits intended to block the E.P.A’s major rules that he is now charge of dismantling.
Mr. Trump has also appointed Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to change a particular Obama administration order that disallows the sale of new coal-mining rights on some federal lands to producers such as Peabody Energy Corp and Cloud Peak Energy Inc.
The new law would take several years to succeed. With regards to the law, Mr. Pruitt will have to remove the current Obama administration regulation and create a new version of this order. Alongside with this is a justification as to why it would be legally superior compared to the other one. That would mean it’s subject to a public comment period before it can be finalized completely, and at some point, might face new lawsuits.
Many signs have indicated that President Donald Trump will soon issue some executive orders as part of the plan of weakening various water and air pollution rules and cutting out the agency budgets. It might be part of his plan to dismantle the former President Obama’s environmental policies and make the life easier for America’s fossil fuel industry to rise. But the big question here is how quickly Trump’s administration can act, and what sorts of strategies they’ll implement in order to succeed.
With that said, repealing the rules, much less replacing them, would undoubtedly be a lengthy process that could span for years to come.
