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You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - March 29, 2017
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This is the March 29, 2017, edition of an email sent from November 2016 to September 2017 that covered Donald Trump's presidential transition, cabinet appointees, and the different policy positions of those individuals who may have had an effect on the new administration. Previous editions of "You're Hired" can be found here.
On Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order directing reviews of Obama administration regulations regarding the environment and energy production within the United States. Today, we look at the action as it deals with the Clean Power Plan, a rule finalized in 2015 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that mandated carbon dioxide emissions reductions in all states, with final targeted levels to be achieved by 2030.
Background on the Clean Power Plan
The Clean Power Plan, formally called the "Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units," is a set of state-specific carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reductions mandated by the EPA. The plan would require each state to achieve reduction targets by January 1, 2030, and maintain them thereafter.
The EPA set different reductions for each state based on the number of power plants in the state and issued guidelines for how states must reach the reductions. In addition, the EPA issued performance standards—called the "best system of emission reduction," or BSER—for states to adopt to reduce the CO2 emissions produced during electricity generation. The rule requires states to submit state implementation plans (SIP) between 2016 and 2018; these plans must be approved by the EPA. The EPA also established interim goals for each state. Interim goals must be met between the years 2020 and 2029. In 2030, each state would be required to meet the EPA's final reduction targets and maintain them thereafter.
The plan, which is an EPA administrative action and did not originate in legislation from Congress, was proposed by the EPA in June 2014 and finalized in October 2015. The EPA justified the plan based on its interpretation of the Clean Air Act. In February 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily halted the rule's implementation pending federal litigation from 27 states challenging the plan.
Read our overview of the Clean Power Plan.
Stances on environmental regulations prior to inauguration
Trump’s statement on the Clean Power Plan prior to inauguration
Regarding energy and environmental regulations, Trump’s transition website said, “We will eliminate the highly invasive ‘Waters of the US’ rule, and scrap the $5 trillion dollar Obama-Clinton Climate Action Plan and the Clean Power Plan and prevent these unilateral plans from increasing monthly electric bills by double-digits without any measurable effect on Earth’s climate.”
The Republican Party platform on the Clean Power Plan
In the Republican Party platform, which was approved in July by delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention, the party states the following concerning energy and the Clean Power Plan: “For low-income Americans, expensive energy means colder homes in the winter and hotter homes in the summer, less mobility in employment, and higher food prices. The current [Obama] Administration, and particularly its EPA, seems not to care. Its Clean Power Plan — the centerpiece of the President’s war on coal — has been stayed by the Supreme Court. We will do away with it altogether.”
Tuesday’s executive action
What it does
The executive order has a number of actions in it, including directing EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to consider formally repealing the Clean Power Plan and to review all agency actions (like regulations, guidance documents, or policies) that the EPA considers to “potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources, with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy resources.” The EPA administrator was ordered to review the Clean Power Plan and the rules and guiding documents associated with that plan specifically in one section of the order.
The order also rescinded a number of policies from the Obama administration, including his 2013 Climate Action Plan that sought to cut carbon emissions in the United States and build infrastructure for climate change preparedness.
Another section of the order directed Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to lift a moratorium on leasing federal land for coal activities and directed administrators to broadly review emissions standards for oil and gas development domestically.
Trump has criticized the Obama administration’s approach to environmental regulations as restrictions on employment and economic growth. On Tuesday, when announcing the action, Trump said, “We’re going to have safety. We’re going to have clean water. We’re going to have clean air. But so many [regulations] are unnecessary and so many are job-killing. … [T]oday’s energy independence action calls for an immediate re-evaluation of the so-called Clean Power Plan. Perhaps no single regulation threatens our miners, energy workers, and companies more than this crushing attack on American industry.”
Democratic responses to the action
- Maria Cantwell (Wash.), ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said, “The Trump administration is sabotaging the United States' chances of becoming the world's clean energy superpower in order to line the pockets of polluters. I will oppose this wrong-headed order with every tool at my disposal."
- Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator during the Obama administration and one of the Clean Power Plan’s authors, said, “This day is really embarrassing for the United States, not just dangerous for our kids and our future. It’s embarrassing for us and our businesses who do global work to be actually be dismissing incredible opportunities for new technologies and economic growth and United States leadership.”
- Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), a critic of the Clean Power Plan and the Obama administration’s environmental policy, said in a statement, “If our goal is a maintaining a diverse energy mix that includes coal, reversing the previous administration’s wrong-headed policies is only step one. Moving forward, the administration and both parties need to work together on pragmatic rules and regulations with realistic goals and achievable timelines to give utilities long-term certainty—regardless of who’s in the White House.”
What’s next for the Clean Power Plan?
The Trump administration has a few options in regards to the Clean Power Plan, including modifying the existing plan and adopting a different approach to the plan.
The Trump EPA can rescind and modify the Clean Power Plan through the federal rule-making process. This process requires the agency to provide notice to the public of proposed changes to a rule and to receive and respond to public comments on any rule changes. Rule changing, like rule making, can take about a year.
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
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