EPA plans to roll back Clean Power Plan, major Obama-era climate rule
The Clean Power Plan limited carbon emissions.
— -- EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced today that the agency plans to roll back a major carbon-emissions rule put in place by the Obama administration — the latest step the Trump presidency has taken to roll back his predecessor's climate regulations.
The Clean Power Plan caps the amount of greenhouse gases that may be emitted from power plants and was a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's plan to slow the effects of global warming.
But at Monday's announcement, Pruitt said the regulation picked "winners and losers," echoing comments from Trump and other officials that environmental regulations eliminated jobs in businesses like the coal industry.
"When you think about the Clean Power Plan, it wasn't about regulating to make things regular," Pruitt said. "It was truly about regulating to pick winners and losers, and they interpreted the best system of emission reduction is generating electricity not using fossil fuels."
Trump called for a review of the Clean Power Plan in an executive order signed in March to reverse what he has called government overreach that hurt the economy.
"Perhaps no single regulation threatens our miners, energy companies and workers more than this crushing attack on American industry," Trump said in March, referring to the Clean Power Plan.
More details on what will happen after the plan is withdrawn were not immediately available.