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President Donald Trump’s administration is poised to walk back an Obama-era greenhouse gas finding that serves as a lynchpin for justifying climate regulations across the country on Wednesday.
The 2009 “endangerment finding” identifies six greenhouse gases that the Obama administration said pose “a threat to public health and welfare.” That harm finding was then used to justify sweeping climate regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), such as raising fuel economy standards and limiting power plant emissions, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin hailed the move as cutting through government red tape in an interview with the Journal.
“This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,” Zeldin said.
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The Journal reports that the final rule will be made public later this week and is set to eliminate requirements to measure, report, certify and comply with federal greenhouse-gas emission standards for motor vehicles. The rollback does not yet affect power plants or oil and gas facilities.
“More energy drives human flourishing,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told the outlet. “Energy abundance is the thing that we have to focus on, not regulating certain forms of energy out.”
Trump is reportedly expected to hold an event at the White House on Wednesday with Zeldin and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. There they will announce a new initiative for the Department of War to purchase electricity from coal-powered plants.
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The Washington Coal Club is also set to name Trump the “Undisputed Champion of Coal” during the event, according to the Journal.
Trump has been consistently critical of global warming claims and climate regulation throughout both of his terms in office, famously withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement when he first took office in 2017.
Trump more recently used the wall of winter storms across the U.S. as a talking point against “climate insurrectionists.”
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“Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before,” Trump wrote on social media last month. “Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???”
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