EPA's Scott Pruitt Announces Repeal Of Clean Power Plan

Published October 10, 2017 at 9:00 AM CDT

In this June 2, 2017, file photo, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt speaks to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

The EPA scraps the Clean Power Plan intended to curb global warming. We’ll hear the facts and fury.

The Trump administration, today moving to repeal the Clean Power Plan, the very centerpiece of the Obama-era drive to tackle global warming. Climate change. While mega-hurricanes rake our shores and California burns, EPA chief Scott Pruitt has announced, “the war against coal is over.” This hour, On Point: What that means for our energy and climate future. Plus: we will look at what the White House now wants as the price of saving DACA and the Dreamers, and how Democrats are responding. — Tom Ashbrook.

Guest

Juliet Eilperin, senior national affairs correspondent, The Washington Post. ( @eilperin)

David Doniger, director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Served on the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration. ( @ddonigernrdc)

Jim Matheson, former Democratic Utah congressman. CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which is a nationwide cooperative of electric power generators and distributors serving rural America. ( @NRECAJim)

From Tom’s Reading List

The Washington Post: EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Tells Coal miners He Will Repeal Power-Plan Rule Tuesday: ‘The War Against Coal Is Over’ — “The 43-page 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.”

The Wall Street Journal: Pruitt’s Clean Power Break — “The Trump Administration is giving the economy a boost with its deregulatory agenda, and the latest example comes Tuesday when Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt will propose to repeal the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan. Ending this power grab will uphold the letter of the law and restore cooperative federalism with the states.”

USA Today: Rollback Of Clean Power Plan Rule By EPA Administrator Pruitt Won’t Happen Overnight — “EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s announcement to a group of coal miners in eastern Kentucky that he plans to sign a proposed rule Tuesday rolling back the Obama-era rule is simply the first of a number of steps the agency will have to take. Proposing a rule to undo a regulation takes the same time-consuming, pain-staking, research-based, legally-defensible process used to adopt the very rule targeted for elimination.”