The directive that administration officials said Trump will issue takes aim at the Clean Power Plan, a far-reaching initiative former President Obama signed in 2015. Trump is expected to ask a Washington, D.C., circuit court to put off an imminent ruling on the legality of the Clean Power Plan while the EPA drafts new, weaker rules. They will point to the EPA’s finding in 2009 that greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare and must be controlled, and the Clean Power Plan is an essential part of controlling their release. Those suits could reemerge, she said, if the revised EPA plan lifts greenhouse gas restrictions on power companies. In California, the state was already so far ahead in reducing emissions by the time the Clean Power Plan was signed that it had no effect on the state's energy plans.

Source: Los Angeles Times March 28, 2017 03:01 UTC