When the new EPA rule was announced attorneys general in California and New Mexico filed suit , challenging the change. Some states, like California, may propose even harsher targets. But others, such as coal-rich states like West Virginia and Pennsylvania, are likely to loosen emissions regulations that coal industry leaders have called burdensome and expensive. Despite legal challenges to the Obama plan, known as the Clean Power Plan, coal plants have declined in recent years.
Since , more than American coal plants have been retired or taken offline. In that time, other energy sources including renewables like wind and solar have become more cost-effective and reliable. The move is likely to have a lasting effect on climate change. By the same measure, the Trump plan is expected to cut emissions only as much as 1. After the rule is submitted to the Federal Register, the public will have 60 days to comment before it is finalized.
Environmental groups are expected to challenge it in court. The Trump administration announced a long-expected plan to dismantle an Obama-era policy that would have increased vehicle mileage standards for cars made over the next decade.
The Obama rules were intended to limit vehicle emissions of greenhouse gasses that contribute to climate change. The vehicle emissions standards had been one of the signature policies of the Obama administration to confront climate change.
They required light cars made after to become almost twice as efficient by —averaging nearly 54 miles per gallon—in hopes of saving billions of barrels of oil needed to burn for fuel. The Trump administration proposal , announced by both the Department or Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency, wouldn't nix the rules entirely but would halt the mileage targets at 34 miles per gallon by Beyond that number, some automakers complained, the targets would be too difficult to reach, and the added expense to innovate technology and alter production lines would cost jobs and increase prices for car buyers.
Other carmakers approved of the Obama rules, acknowledging that even if they were burdensome, they leveled the playing field for all automakers in all states, ensuring that no company could sell cheaper, less-efficient cars while others tried to innovate. People who owned more efficient cars would drive more, they said, putting them at greater risk of accidents.
They also said that cars with better mileage would delay people from getting new cars with enhanced safety features. Some experts interviewed by the New York Times expressed skepticism at these explanations. The Trump administration's move sets up a legal battle with more than a dozen states, led by California, that have passed their own set of higher fuel standards. Despite the relief from the Trump Administration's move, several companies have urged the administration to return to negotiations with states to agree on a uniform set of standards across the country.
They argued that a fragmented system between federal and state rules, like the one Trump's rollback creates, would be a worst-case scenario.
Juliana v. The Obama Administration sought unsuccessfully to have the case dismissed, arguing remedies for climate change are better addressed by Congress than in court. The Trump Administration was named as a defendant in the case in January In March, Trump Administration lawyers filed the first of several attempts to have the case dismissed or delayed. None succeeded, prompting the appeal to the high court. Department of the Interior officials dismissed evidence that the monument designations brought benefits, the Washington Post reports.
On July 16, the Interior Department's Freedom of Information Act team uploaded thousands of pages of documents that had not been completely redacted. The next day, officials took down these documents and replaced them. The erroneously un-redacted documents contain facts that cast some monuments in a positive light. One analysis by the Bureau of Land Management mentioned that once Grand Staircase-Escalante became a national monument, the annual rate of archaeological listings in the area more than doubled, and vandalism dropped.
In December , President Trump moved to shrink the monument by 46 percent. The administration reviewed the Atlantic Ocean monument—which President Obama created in —amid concerns that the monument's ban on fishing hurt local fishers. Bowman sought to nix data showing that from to , about two-thirds of the area's shipping vessels generated less than five percent of their annual landings from the waters that became the monument.
That clause aims to protect executive branch staffers as they honestly discuss and hone policies. On Thursday, the Trump administration unveiled a proposal that would make several key changes to the Endangered Species Act—the law that has served as a bulwark against the bald eagle's extinction, among thousands of other species.
The plan calls for nixing a rule that forbids referring to the economic impacts of listing an endangered or threatened species. That said, the plan makes pains to say that determinations would still be based only on biological considerations.
It also would give regulators greater freedom to avoid designating critical habitat for threatened and endangered species. It also would tweak how the risks facing threatened species—which aren't endangered yet but could be in the foreseeable future—would be weighed. What's more, the U. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed eliminating the blanket section 4 d rule. Since the s, this FWS policy gave threatened species all the protections given to endangered species, which face a more immediate risk of extinction, by default.
The hundreds of threatened plants and animals that currently have blanket 4 d protections will continue to have them, according to FWS. The proposed changes will be posted to the Federal Register in a matter of days. The Trump administration has invited public comment on the rules, which will be open for 60 days on regulations.
Pruitt's resignation, confirmed by President Trump in a statement on Twitter , comes after months of criticism and an ever-growing pile of ethics scandals. A recent CNN report also alleges that Pruitt made his staff omit parts of his schedule from the public record. Pruitt also caught fire for asking his staff for personal help.
Pruitt reportedly asked his unprecedentedly large security detail to turn on their emergency lights as he ran late to a meal at a chic D. French restaurant. He also asked his detail to track down his favorite lotion, and he asked his top aides to retrieve his dry cleaning, pick up snacks, track down used hotel mattresses, and help find his wife a job.
Beyond his cavalcade of scandals, Pruitt also brought abrupt changes to U. He halted an Obama-era request that fossil-fuel producers track methane emissions and overruled EPA scientists' plea to ban the insecticide chlorpyrifos. The EPA under Pruitt moved hastily to end the Obama administration's signature environmental policies. Pruitt also advocated for the U.
In a contentious letter recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association , two Harvard University researchers argue that the Trump administration's environmental policies, as championed by Pruitt, could kill an additional 80, people per decade when compared to prior policy. Congress directed the CMS's creation in , but as Science reporter Paul Voosen notes, the March spending deal didn't specifically dedicate funds to the program —giving the White House sufficient latitude to wind it down.
Researchers say that CMS-supported work is particularly relevant to the global Paris Agreement , especially for verifying whether the nations of the world are actually meeting their pledges to reduce carbon emissions.
The move marks the latest efforts of the Trump administration, which has rejected the Paris Agreement and an array of prior U. Trump officials also advocate the shutdown of the Earth-viewing instruments aboard DSCOVR , which have taken high-res pictures of our planet's sunlit half nearly every hour since July Despite the closure of CMS, NASA will continue to operate several climate-monitoring satellites, and the agency is scheduled to launch two climate instruments to the International Space Station by the end of Yet researchers contend that without CMS's support, research into how to make sense of these data will slow.
Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly attributed a quote to Harvard University scientist Daniel Jacob. The quote is actually from University of Maryland scientist George Hurtt. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt proposed a rule Tuesday that would only allow the agency to consider in its rule making scientific studies for which the underlying data are made available publicly.
Industry and conservative groups have called for this change for some time, while some environmental groups warn that it could reduce the EPA's ability to consider all the evidence available when making rules on tough questions like power plant emissions and the safety of everything from pesticides to consumer products. The White House is currently reviewing a regulation that some environmental groups fear could nix protections granted to nearly threatened species. In a surprise rule change submitted on Monday , the U.
The ESA affords wide-ranging protections to species on the brink of extinction, barring everything from outright poaching to coming too close to the species in the wild. These restrictions don't automatically apply to threatened species, but section 4 d of the ESA says that departments can protect threatened species at their discretion.
Historically, different departments have used this discretion in different ways. By default, FWS's blanket section 4 d rule gives threatened species every ESA protection, which regulators then clarify and whittle down. When the National Marine Fisheries Service lists a threatened species, however, it adds protections bit by bit. The proposed removal of the blanket section 4 d rule concerns environmental groups because it's possible that the move would jeopardize protections for hundreds of threatened species, which aren't yet facing the threat of extinction but could in the future.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group, species listed as threatened by the FWS are afforded protections only because of the blanket rule.
The affected species include the northern spotted owl , the southern sea otter, the spotted seal, as well as eight species of coral and numerous plants. This certainly looks like a regulatory rollback. That said, the rule change's impact remains unclear. The proposed regulation hasn't been released, and once it is, it will be subject to a period of public comment. The Interior Department has not yet responded to National Geographic's emailed questions about the proposed rule change.
In gearing up for the rule change, the Trump administration appears to be responding to two legal petitions filed in by the Pacific Legal Foundation—a conservative public-interest law firm—on behalf of the Washington Cattlemen's Association and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
The groups argue that by giving threatened species all ESA protections as a default, the blanket rule functionally eliminates the distinction between endangered and threatened species. They say the arrangement illegally flouts Congress and penalizes private landowners. Jonathan Wood, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, maintains that rescinding the blanket rule won't hurt conservation. He argues that if threatened species have fewer protections than endangered species, then private landowners have an incentive to help endangered species recover to threatened status—since the upgrade in status removes onerous regulations.
Read more about the debate over the Endangered Species Act. Environmental groups and Wood disagree vehemently on the ESA's efficacy. But they agree on one major point: the text of the regulation may take months to be released, and until then, it's unclear how threatened species will be treated. In July , President Obama announced he would tighten regulations of vehicle greenhouse gas emissions, with rules that were first finalized in August Under Obama-era policy, cars and light-duty trucks would be required to have average fuel efficiencies equivalent to About a sixth of U.
Overall, the Obama program would've reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 6 billion metric tons— more than the total CO 2 the U. The EPA committed to finishing a midterm evaluation of the standards by no later than April 1, At the time, car manufacturers argued that the standards were unrealistic, expensive, and politically rushed.
The Trump administration has enthusiastically echoed these sentiments; it restarted the midterm evaluation in March Automakers struck a guardedly pleased tone in releases about the announcement, seemingly leery that they may be getting more rollbacks out of the Trump EPA than they originally bargained for. Already, environmental and public health groups are voicing fierce opposition. Globally, lowering U. Within the U.
Under a waiver it received at the dawn of the EPA, California has the authority to set its own, more stringent emissions standards. Twelve other states and the District of Columbia—in all, a third of the U. In a move that pleased conservationists and infuriated cattlemen, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced his support for efforts to return the grizzly bear to the North Cascades ecosystem. It's part of a healthy environment," he said according to The Seattle Times.
Zinke said that by the end of , U. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that fewer than 50 grizzly bears now live in the region, which is isolated from other grizzly populations in North America. The following year, the Seattle Times reports that the Obama administration announced a three-year recovery study. In , the study was halted; now, with Zinke's support, it will presumably continue. NPR reports that the U. Disaster costs are expected to continue to increase due to rising natural hazard risk, decaying critical infrastructure, and economic pressures that limit investments in risk resilience.
As good stewards of taxpayer dollars, FEMA must ensure that our programs are fiscally sound. Additionally, we will consider new pathways to long-term disaster risk reduction, including increased investments in pre-disaster mitigation. The threats of climate change featured in FEMA strategic plans drafted under the Obama administration , as well as earlier ones.
In a strategic plan drafted under the George W. In a statement to Earther , EPA spokesperson Liz Bowman said that the move is intended to make the agency more efficient. STAR funding helps support the U. Missing from the document is any mention of climate change or carbon dioxide, points of emphasis in Obama-era EPA strategic plans.
In its FY budget and addendum , the Trump administration has proposed sweeping rollbacks to U. At this point, the budget is merely an opening bid in negotiations with Congress; last year, lawmakers largely ignored similar proposed cuts.
Nevertheless, the budget provides insight into the White House's priorities. In addition, the EPA has proposed axing several voluntary emissions-reductions programs and STAR, which funds environmental research and graduate student fellowships. Other parts of the budget trim environmental services, such as the EPA's Report on the Environment , and cut the agency's Human Health Risk Assessment program by nearly 40 percent. Read more about the targeted missions.
These instruments include EPIC, which continually photographs Earth's sunlit half to measure the planet's energy budget. The White House has proposed eliminating the U. The program primarily aims to help other countries better weather the impacts of climate change. Though most developing countries did little to contribute to ongoing climate change, developing countries will be more severely affected.
The budget also calls for nearly a percent cut to the department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy , even after accounting for the Bipartisan Budget Act of BBA , which recently increased FY spending levels. At the same time, the budget calls for increases in spending on fossil fuels. The Washington Post reports that in its budget, the Trump administration is seeking to slash Department of Energy funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives by 72 percent.
Congress would likely oppose such steep cuts in any future budget negotiations, but the move further signals the Trump administration's avowed support of fossil-fuel industries.
The Post also reports that the budget suggests staffing cuts, from staffers in to a proposed in This would not be the first time that the Trump administration has attempted to slash this sort of funding. In its budget, the Trump administration sought cuts of more than two-thirds for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which Congress rejected.
Industry lawyers and Senate Republicans have long argued that eliminating OIAI will actually provide a stronger incentive for businesses to reduce emissions, since they can now more easily lower emissions and avoid the regulations that major pollution sources must endure.
However, environmental activists and lawyers are concerned with the abrupt change, saying that it may actually increase exposure to hazardous air pollution—especially among vulnerable populations, who live near major industrial polluters more often. By law, major sources must retool their processes to get their emissions down to the lowest levels set by peers within the industry. Under the new EPA policy, however, the company could do just enough to reduce emissions from 11 tons to nine.
By dropping below the ton threshold, the company goes from being a major source to being an area source—thereby jettisoning the MACT requirement. While going from 11 tons of emissions to nine is technically a reduction, it's actually more pollution relative to what the facility could have achieved by complying with MACT standards. First chartered by Congress in , the civilian group is required to contain academic experts, experienced park managers, and at least one former elected official from an area adjacent to a national park.
The board advises the National Park System, the National Park Service, and the Secretary of the Interior on a wide range of matters, and it also helps to select national historic landmarks.
Its members are unpaid. In a joint letter, Finney and other departing board members expressed frustration at Secretary Zinke's refusal to meet with them. We understand the complexity of transition but our requests to engage have been ignored, and the matters on which we wanted to brief the new Department team are clearly not part of its agenda," wrote Tony Knowles, the board's departing chair and a former Alaska governor, in a resignation letter co-signed by Finney and seven other board members.
In May, the Washington Post reported that the Interior Department began a sweeping review of more than advisory boards and other entities associated with the department. A new report finds that in the first year of the Trump administration, U.
However, there is no evidence of tampering with climate data. Since Trump's inauguration, the group has monitored thousands of government web pages for changes or deletions. In some instances, "climate change" is replaced with the vaguer words "sustainability" or "resiliency.
For instance, the Bureau of Land Management's web page on climate change was taken down between May and November , the report states. EDGI emphasizes that, so far, it hasn't seen evidence of the removal or deletion of climate data sets, as some scientists and activists had feared.
Reversing Obama-era policy , the Trump administration has decreed that it will no longer consider the accidental killing of birds—from eagles colliding with wind turbines to ducks zapped on power lines—a violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act MBTA.
Originally envisioned to save birds from overhunting, the law now safeguards more than 1, migratory bird species and their eggs, feathers, and nests. But the phrase itself does not appear in the law. Through the years, some U. In a memo published on January 10, , Hilary Tompkins —the outgoing solicitor for the Obama Interior Department—found that all forms of incidental take were prohibited under the MBTA.
In her memo , she cites the U. Tompkins also notes that Canada—the co-signer of the Migratory Bird Treaty of , which sparked the MBTA—interprets it as requiring the prohibition of incidental takes.
On December 22, it was replaced entirely by a memo reaching the opposite conclusion , relying in part on some U. Conservation groups are outraged by the decision. Fish and Wildlife Service under Obama. Energy companies, in particular, have been regularly penalized for incidental takes. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in , the largest in U. Renewable energy and fossil-fuel groups alike have praised the MBTA reversal.
The joint effort will explore and celebrate birds, as well as document the threats facing them. President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will no longer regard climate change by name as a national security threat.
Depending on the region, extreme weather events—such as droughts, wildfires, heatwaves , and torrential rains—may become more frequent and intense under climate change, posing threats to military installations and civilian communities alike.
As weather patterns change, some disease-bearing creatures such as mosquitoes will enjoy longer active seasons over wider areas , exacerbating threats to public health. In addition, rising seas threaten to cripple coastal military infrastructure, an ongoing concern at the U. Melting ice means that the normally ice-clogged Arctic is poised to transform into a major shipping route , altering regional geopolitics. Warmer, more acidic waters will kill off many coral reefs , which supply food and income to millions.
And as sea levels rise, flooding will displace coastal populations. Navy rear admiral, in a previous interview. In a speech delivered in Salt Lake City, President Trump announced his intention to sharply reduce two Utah national monuments established by his predecessors. In a move presaged by leaked government documents , Trump announced that he would reduce the 1. The president also said he would cut the 1.
Indian nations, conservation groups, and paleontologists have filed suit over the expected changes, among the most sweeping efforts taken by a U. For more, read our extensive coverage of the proposed changes—and what they actually mean. Department of Interior has proposed auctioning off oil and gas leases for 77 million acres of federal waters within the Gulf of Mexico—the largest lease auction of its kind ever announced.
The auction is about a million acres larger than the most recent auction of its ilk, which occurred under the Obama administration in August The announcement comes days after an oil pipeline off the coast of Louisiana spilled some , gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico , the largest oil leak in the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which was more than times bigger.
Forecasters say that the oil, which dispersed under 5, feet of water, is not expected to impact the shoreline, according to an ABC report. The rule remained in legal limbo as a result. President Trump campaigned on repealing the CPP, decrying it as an unfair burden on the coal industry and overall economy. A new report by the Rhodium Group , a policy research firm, finds that the U.
However, as the New York Times noted, that same report finds that the CPP would have required up to 21 states to cut their emissions more deeply than existing regulations call for. The new Biden administration will likely undo many of these midnight regulations, in some instances lessening burdens on individuals and business. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs OIRA , which is charged with reviewing and approving executive agency actions, typically discharges 40—50 regulations a month.
That number jumped to 58 from June to October. The lookback period for began August 21, , so anything after that date is fair game for Democrats to repeal in early And there will be plenty of regulatory targets for the new Congress and President Joe Biden.
The Trump team also pushed out OIRA regulatory reviews in the midnight period, compared to for the Obama administration. For a Republican comparative, President George W. In terms of compliance costs, data compiled by the American Action Forum indicate the Trump midnight rules will impose a truly staggering burden for what amounts to a few weeks of regulating.
Equally startling is the figure for new paperwork: 64 million burden hours. This mammoth rule was under OIRA review for less than two months. Given bipartisan support for the rule, it has a decent chance of staying in place for the next four years, although some modifications are possible. I want to thank you for that, President Trump.
Regulatory reform in the energy sector creates jobs, reduces costs for our communities, and puts trucks to work. Streamlined permitting and creating an environment that allows for efficient construction and infrastructure repair and development has the same effect. As a result of these regulatory reforms, our industry has seen record sales of heavy-duty trucks, which have — has been a boon to dealerships like ours, as well as the environment.
Safer on the road. Bringing manufacturing back to our shores helps our industry and our entire country. In short, when we cut red tape, we create an economy that is responsible and sensible. We, as Americans, all win. Thank you, President Trump.
Good job. Amy Johnson is a nurse practitioner in rural Virginia. Amy, please come up and share with us how important expanded healthcare and telehealth has been for you and your patients. Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Telehealth deregulation has been of substantial benefit to my colleagues and I over recent months during the COVID crisis.
Prior to COVID restrictions, our small local hospital that had limited access to specialty services used telehealth for neurological, mental health, and palliative care consults. However, telehealth was not something that was used within our primary-care setting.
This allowed me to continue to care for my patients, including those that were the most vulnerable, without risking exposure to illness by bringing them into the office setting. As a farm safety specialist, I can see the use of telehealth expanding to offer more services to our farming population and rural Americans, including much-needed mental health services, which are unfortunately very sparse. In addition, access to primary care and to specialty services can be improved in medically underserved areas with deregulation and the use of telehealth services by healthcare providers, increasing the use of preventative healthcare modalities, allowing for more intensive management of patients with chronic diseases and decreasing healthcare disparities.
And I appreciate the opportunity to thank you for the deregulation in every area, including the Waters of the United States, cutting the red tape, setting us free as private property owners. Our ranch has approximately dry washes flowing across it. These are little washes with no water. The Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, who wrote the Obama regulations, ruled that any dry wash that had more than 12 inches of sand in the bottom became a water of the United States.
Hence, we were subject to regulations and oversight from Washington, D. It was outrageous. I believe that the rules and regulations were overreaching, caused red tape, and threatened me and other farmers, ranchers, businessmen, and landowners with the possibility of going to jail and facing huge fines. Thank you, Mr. President, for the Navigable Water Protection Rule that you promulgated.
It has set us free. The heavy hand of government is no longer on our shoulders. Thank you, Jim. That was my honor, Jim, and thank you very much. It was — that you had to suffer so long. They took your property away from you. And you want to take care of your property better than any government is going to tell you to take care of your property. Beautifully said. I want to just, as President, say that I will always fight to defend your rights and your freedoms. The hard left wants to reverse these extraordinary gains and re-impose these disastrous regulations.
And I guess they can do that. And they want to bury our economy under suffocating, relentless landslides of Washington red tape like we had before I got here.
The greatest people in the world. You think that was bad? They want to go many times what they put you under in the past. Not surprising to you, China will be greatly advanced under this ridiculous agreement, and so will Russia, so will many other countries.
They propose to mandate net-zero emissions from all new homes and buildings, skyrocketing the cost of construction and putting the goal of homeownership out of reach for millions — destroying the look of the home, the beauty of the home.
You still have to sell, right? You still have to sell. Totally out of reach. They want to eliminate carbon from the U. No coal, no gas, no oil, nothing to fire our massive plants. The result of this federally mandated shutdown would be the wholesale destruction of the entire energy industry and many other industries, the economic evisceration of entire communities, and the unfettered offshoring of millions of our best jobs to foreign countries and foreign polluters.
Millions and millions of jobs would go. But thousands of companies, plants, factories would be closed. Under this dismal future, energy would be unaffordable for the vast majority of Americans, and the American Dream would be sniffed out so quickly and replaced with a socialist disaster.
The Democrats in D. They are absolutely determined to eliminate single-family zoning, destroy the value of houses and communities already built, just as they have in Minneapolis and other locations that you read about today. Your home will go down in value and crime rates will rapidly rise. And what will be the end result is you will totally destroy the beautiful suburbs.
Suburbia will be no longer as we know it. So they wanted to defund and abolish your police and law enforcement while at the same time destroying our great suburbs. The suburb destruction will end with us. The Biden-Bernie plan would also use the weapon of federal regulation to tie the hands of our police departments by abolishing cash bail — think of that. Think of that: bail. They killed somebody? Let them out.
They probably want to abolish. Just like the Green New Deal. How crazy is that? We believe in the dignity of the individual, not the iron grip of the state. Our regulatory reforms are vital not only to the success of our economy, but the strength of our democracy and the survival of liberty itself. My administration will continue pressing forward until we have made every last vestige of Washington fully, completely, and totally accountable to the citizens of the United States.
We are putting our faith in the workers who power our country: the doctors who care for our country, the truckers who sustain our country, and the farmers and ranchers who preserve our country in all of its majestic beauty. The American people are the ones who made our nation great, and together, we will make it greater, by far, than ever before.
God bless you and God bless America. Thank you very much for being with us. I guess we said it absolutely right. We want to be strong, we want to respect everybody, but we have to have strong law enforcement.
We want others to call us for help. Let Chicago call. Let Seattle call. We were going into Seattle, all set to go, and then they did it themselves. They heard we were coming in, and the hands went up; they gave up. Get the Guard. The National Guard. As soon as they showed up, it was like a knife cutting through butter. You saw that, right? After four days of horror. They were told to leave.
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