Trump administration took aim Wednesday at one of California’s premier climate change policies, suing the state for entering into a cap-and-trade agreement with the Canadian province of Quebec to lower fossil fuel emissions. The lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice argues that California overstepped its legal authority by forging an agreement with another country designed to limit air pollution and climate-warming greenhouse gases. “The state of California has veered outside of its proper constitutional lane to enter into an international emissions agreement,” said Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division in a release. "California’s unlawful cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec undermines the President’s ability to negotiate competitive agreements with other nations, as the President sees fit,” Clark added. The program works by establishing an annual limit, or a cap, on nearly all of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Source: Los Angeles Times October 23, 2019 13:52 UTC