Trump Wants to Repeal Obama’s Climate Plan. The Next Fight: Its Replacement.

The discussion is only half about emissions and we spend too much time and effort only focusing there. The bigger problem is that we're running out of fossil fuels with which to poison ourselves. We desperately need to convert to alternatives for pure survival reasons. IN place of emissions discussions we should be talking about removing carbon from the air. Mechanical devices won't do the job but photosynthesis can.

What do I have to say? I am not a Ph.D., only a lowly B.A. in business and chemistry.

Trump's only mission as president is to remove all remnants of President Obama's legacy. Trump's racism is so obvious. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see as plain as that monstrosity on his head ( What the heck is that all about?). Trump was king of the Birthers. He used that canard to catapult his horribly racist sexist campaign forth. What should have been brought outrage from rank and file Republicans instead brought huge crowds of like-mined bigots. Simply deplorable. Republicans nominated the most unqualified, unhinged candidate of all. The people through the Electoral College anomaly elected him. Voila! A demagogue in chief was born. The 45th president of the most powerful country has reached the abyss. What will it do to correct this catastrophe in 2018? 2020? 2022? We shall see what the American people are truly made of. DD Manhattan DD Manhattan

Here we go again. Members of Congress are stupid and unknowing. Everything for me and nothing for you. There is nothing more to say but plenty to do. I said a long time ago that we are destroying what our founding fathers and those who came to our shores from Europe hidden in the holds of their ships so as to make a better country for all. Now all that is gone, just like the Roman Empire is.

'We don't comment on rules undergoing interagency review"?? She must mean, 'We can't tell you which lobbyists have been at us to change the rules for the benefit of the polluting industries and the utilities, who pay their way (and who got Trump to hire the climate change denier Pruitt).' This is a taxpayer funded agency. US citizens need to know what is going on, immediately.

Pruit has not rejected the consensus that man has effected the climate, just that Carbon Dioxide is a major portion of that effect. He believes deforestation and urbanization have larges effects and there is evidence both ways. He does not believe the carbon plan will be effective, and it urbanization an deforestation are more important he is right.

The "replacement" is simple, a market and value based system. With natural gas replacing coal, with value based alternative generation and state requirements we have a process that will reduce emissions without federal regulations. Those states and private organizations that are willing to pay the price will. Not to mention we should focus on say methane as Exxon is now doing, as well as other alternatives. Planting trees is another great alternative, there are many others.

Just like Trump's obsession to repeal but not replace the ACA, this is yet another vendetta-based plan to dismantle a crucial protection from the Obama administration. Trump would blithely kill us all if it meant getting revenge on the president he loathed for eight years. His racism is on display every day in myriad ways, and it's the reason for every terrible, devastating decision he makes. His one-two punch of racism and solipsism is going to destroy us if action isn't taken.

Do the majority of Americans hate Obama as much as Trump does? I doubt it. This is not about policy, and it certainly is not about making America "greater and better." For every good act that President Obama did over an eight year period, for our nation AND our global community, this present occupier in the White House is relentless in destroying. In his egomaniacal frenzy, Trump is one by one demolishing all that we are entitled to - our rights in a democracy. This man is the biggest mistake this nation - and Russia - has made during my 72 years of life. And it is saying a lot when one considers Nixon in the mix. And what or who are we left with to rein him in? Certainly not our Congress. Its leaders are merely extensions of their vile boss. That leaves us to continue fighting, to make his life as miserable as he is making ours.

I saw a comment about wind energy in the red, mid-western states. I live here and unfortunately most of the wind comes out of "red" mouths rather than the atmosphere.

Trump and the GOP leadership ignore science in favor of increasing the wealth of themselves and their patrons in the fossil fuel industry. They also try to deflect public awareness of the ever-encroaching reality of climate change, which the world is undeniably experiencing. To try to muddy the waters, Trump and his GOP cohorts invoke cute catch phrases, which they use to gin up support from those who rely on alternative facts and carnival barkers to guide their choices. For example, Mitch, Paul, Donald, et.al., condemn the Democrats' "war on coal." They decry environmental protections as "job killers." (This, despite the huge number of jobs being created every year by the renewable energy industry.) I suspect that in the early days of the 20th Century, a similar phenomenon took place, albeit without the tin-horn amplification of social media. Henry Ford and others in the newly-emerging auto industry were probably criticized by some for their "war on horses." They were no doubt castigated for destroying ranch hand jobs. Well, reality can be intrusive. Those who want to hold back human progress for their own narrow self interest cannot stem the tide for long. Trump and his "war on horses" will not long endure.

The people who voted the most incompetent fool of a president in my lifetime into office whole heartedly deserve to suffer the consequences of their vote. Unfortunately the rest of us do not and we share the same little blue sphere of a planet with these sadly misinformed people. This is going to be an exhausting long slog to clean up the mess they will create in as little as 4 years.

Rebuking Obama's emphasis on Climate Change will sure be difficult given September's natural disasters. The GOP should learn to stop why they're ahead.

All these climate plans are just to build favor in the first place. None of them are actually going to make much of a difference. I'd rather pile all the money into research and focus on incentives in that area. We need something truly innovative....not decreasing emissions by whatever percentage in however many years. Most people don't even know the details of these plans, they just like it because it's the politically correct thing to do. It's too late to just curb emissions, so why is that the focus of these plans?

Pruitt's EPA is already getting sued: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/maryland-sues-epa-to-get-36-coal-fired-p...

Obama promised to close Guantanamo. Trump has promised to end Obamacare and the Clean Power Plan. I guess it is true that history repeats itself. This is going nowhere.

Climate change economics: deny climate change and create $X profits for the coal industry but create $Y for the Federal Gov't , Insurance Co and the public to pay for enhanced natural disasters. Note: $Y >> $X

It definitely seems there would be no Trump without Obama, when the stated objective of one is to simply overturn the other. The pity of trying to climb to even loftier heights is risking even greater falls. Idealism is almost a death wish it seems with little room for human error.

American voters wanted this. They will continue to vote for these policies. We will have Republican control of all branches for some time, and the courts will soon be conservative enough to make that more or less a permanent situation. Anyone who can't see that this country is in decline as a rational democracy has their head in the sand. Leave while you can.

The first thing Trump must have done when he walked into the White House on inauguration day was ask for a list of everything Obama had done so he could systematically get rid of it all and crow about it to boot. This is just the latest evidence of that. His base may love it, but it makes him look like what he is: an old white hate-filled racist, bent on destroying accomplishments he can never hope to match, thinking his personal vendetta against a man whose shoes are too big for him to fill makes him look leaderly. Sad.

Here we go again. If it has Obama's name attached to it, Trump will try to kill it. Trump's predictability is sickening.

I want to see a poll that asks respondents: Based on the president's polices regarding health care, the environment and global relations, how optimistic are you about the future?

Please replace it with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's Off Fossil Fuels Act. This act calls for 100% renewable energy by 2035 with an equitable transition. We all need to be making a big deal about this idea. The more people speak up about it, the more normal the idea of decarbonizing will seem (like what's happened with single-payer health care). We have precious little time to waste. I believe that the climate crisis is still not really on people's main radar screen. I also believe that most people still have not registered the fact that we have a handful of years or less to act or face ever-increasing danger. (If they realized, wouldn't they be acting more concerned? Especially people with children?) The media is starting to name "that which shall not be named" in the coverage of violent weather, but I think the real way to get people on board is to talk loudly and often about the climate problem and solutions, as well as clean-energy economy jobs. The OFF Act is a great hook. Call your reps too!

A nice tool for state-by-state comparison of sources of electricity is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/power-plants/?utm_term=... Scroll below the first map and there's a chart showing use by power source for each state. Click on coal and see that only 13 states get more than 50% of their power from coal - and that number drops each year. Click on wind and some might be surprised at how many Red states top the list of power from wind, but it's because they're on the Plains, where there is an awful lot of wind. People claiming we can't continue reducing use of coal quickly aren't paying attention. Wind and solar farms don't cause asthma, emphysema or other illnesses, either.

Climate change falls under state powers such that states seem to have much more say overall, than federal governments, in the US and elsewhere. Pres. Trump will catch up when the numbers fall into line.

Like previous empires in history, the United States is another empire that has now chosen a self destructive path whose days are now numbered. If you can, start making your exit plans now.

Ebell is correct that one president's discretionary actions can be undone by a later president, but he's incorrect to imply that there was no legislation behind Obama's Clean Power Plan. In 2003, the Bush EPA refused to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. It argued that although the Clean Air Act authorizes regulation of air pollutants, greenhouse gases are not air pollutants. The EPA's back-up position was that even if it could regulate greenhouse gases, it wouldn't, because of other administration priorities. The decision was challenged in court. The Supreme Court rejected the first argument: greenhouse gases are clearly air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court rejected the second argument on the ground that the Clean Air Act requires a scientific basis for non-regulation of air pollutants, and the EPA had not shown one. The case was sent back to the EPA for further consideration. The Obama administration then took office and the EPA concluded that greenhouse gases endanger public health - the "endangerment finding" the article refers to. A federal appeals court unanimously upheld that finding in 2010. If Pruitt decides to revoke the "endangerment finding" and go back to non-regulation of greenhouse gases, the courts will require a scientific basis for the decision, which will be hard to find given the strong contrary consensus among climate scientists. politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com

Even a weakened plan will be sued. Under current law, as tested through the Supreme Court, CO2 is a pollutant, the EPA is required to regulate it adequately to protect both human health and the environment. There's no way that Pruitt's clowns can overturn the science of the endangerment finding -- opening that is sure to put them in much worse shape now , given that the evidence is far stronger now than it was then. "red team/blue team" just demonstrates how empty and lackwit this "idea" is. If Trump & Pruitt want to avoid CO2 regulation then the obvious thing is to pass a bill through congress specifically delisting CO2 as a pollutant and eliminating all regulation of it. This could not be done through reconciliation, so they'd need 60 votes ... not going to happen. There are Republican senators who would not vote for that. The Clean Air Act was passed by Congress. The Supreme Court (with Scalia on it at the time) agreed that CO2 is a pollutant within its definition. The science of the endangerment finding simply cannot be overturned by those ignorant of the science; the law specifies a scientific review process. This will put Pruitt and Trump in court ... go take a look at how many of Pruitt's lawsuits he won.

I imagine if Myron Ebell gets his way and they go to Congress to pass legislation we can look forward to Republican members giving it the same attention and due consideration as the recent healthcare bills. In other words, they will claim they didn't get time to read it all, can't actually answer any questions about it but know in their gut it's the right thing to do for America (i.e. America Inc. and their donors). Having Ebell lead the EPA transition team shows you this administration has no understanding of climate change.

Settling global warming by “red team- blue team debate” suggested by Pruitt is nonsense. That debate is settled in the minds of 97% of actively working climatologists, the rest being doubters or fence sitters largely supported by the oil and coal industry. The only discussions remaining is the extent of the warming, its impact and best approaches for mitigating or correcting the trends. The basic scientific facts can't be denied, the global temperatures are rising for both atmosphere and ocean waters, with the ten hottest years all occurring in since 1998, including sequential record years in 2015 and 2016 (results independently verified by NASA, NOAA, and research institutions in Japan, Australia, UK and other European countries). The changes in global temperature since early-20th century are nearly 1 C for the ocean and 1.7 C for the atmosphere. The uninformed deniers believe that these increases are all well within “natural” expectations, confusing short term weather data with multi-year global averages. 1-2 degrees over such long time is inconsequential they say, forgetting that in the absence of oceans we would be frying by now. The heat trapped in the warmer atmosphere is transferred to the oceans, which act as heat reservoirs. It takes about 3000 times the heat to raise water by 1 C than it would take to warm air by 1 C, thus most of the greenhouse heat is predominantly stored in the oceans, sparing us from unacceptable levels to sustain life on earth as we know it.

The quote that ends this article is correct, no matter who said it: “What one president can do by pen and by phone another president can undo by pen and by phone.”

It is amazing that those who complain about leaving debt to their children and grandchildren don't want to leave an environment that is livable to those same descendants.

It is an outrage -the denial and trafficking in out right lies and half truths. Evidence- who gives a flying whatever. California has the toughest standards and a booming econmony. The two coexist quite nicely.

CPP isn't just about climate change, but public health, especially pulmonary disease. This will kill thousands of people every year. But Trump doesn't care.

So called Green Party voters: Have you finally done enough indirect damage to the planet and it's inhabitants? Was this your goal? Are you pleased with the outcome of your voting decisions? I really am curious.

Classic 'racism' on Trump's sleeve, intent in destroying, and erasing, anything with Obama's name on it, however valuable and useful and universal in it's intent. We have a most vulgar bully in the White House, extremely ignorant and highly arrogant, whose only 'contribution' is the tribal promotion of fear, hate and division. And, lest we forget, his own enrichment...at our expense. This situation, an institutionalized violence, is a slap in our face. For how long are we going to look the other way, as long as it doesn't affect us personally? Decency demands a proper response...in a timely fashion, before we are trained and call it the 'new normal'. Let's wake up, start thinking for ourselves, for a change. Otherwise, our chance to be heard will vanish. Climate change, aggravated by humans by spewing pollutants indiscriminately in the environment, is all too obvious, as empiric evidence has been biting on us for far too long.

This issue is not even about differing views in the debate about protecting the environment, it is literally about rewriting and "bleaching" history. The racist Trump who has never fully retracted his vile birther nonsense is attempting to eliminate all things "Obama" from the historical record. Trump and his white supremacist enablers and followers are actively seeking to deny that the United States EVER had a Black president. That is the racist agenda that is driving many of Trump's policies, and the fact that so many of them have traction among Republicans nationwide tells you EXACTLY who we are as a nation.

All part of the grand plan to erase the legacy of that black guy. If the coal barons and oil magnates can get rich at the same time, all the better.

Facts are a little easier than opinions to present to a court of law...just sayin.

“I would be surprised if repeal did not lead to replacement,” said Paul Bailey, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity." If wishes were fishes... The only way "clean coal" has a chance of succeeding would be for the EPA and the rest of the government to accept the danger of greenhouse emissions. The Supreme Court already did. So'd EPA. That's the way a more expensive way to produce energy from coal would be able to compete - and in the US it's unlikely, since we have access to so many other energy sources that emit little or no CO2 already. More simply, sequestering CO2 produced by energy sources is only going to pay if the work and expense of doing that storage is something society accepts the need to pay for.

The GOP will continue to deny climate change and deregulate environmental protections. The ultra rich donors the Republicans in Congress represent have made it a top priority. Campaign contributions are at stake for those who break their pledge by supporting climate change legislation. The E.P.A. is bad for business.

When someone buys a life or health insurance policy, it's not because they necessarily think illness or death is imminent--it's a layer of protection against undesirable future events. You don't have to believe you'll get run over by a cement truck to legitimize these protections, nor to defend yourself against attack for being cautiously prudent. So in that vein, climate deniers need to ask themselves "What if I am wrong and encroaching climate catastrophes are increasing and threatening everybody's well-being?" Rolling the dice in a fervor of unshakable climate change denial is downright dangerous and completely unnecessary.

I'm sure this new really stupid idea of Trump's will be really popular in Houston, Louisiana, Florida, Alaska, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin islands, and all of the states dealing with strange weather events. How about Donald Trump talking to room of Climatologist, Geographers, Geologist and Earth Scientist, before he makes a fool of himself, not that he already embarrassed himself with his profound ignorance.

Hey legal eagles reading this very informative article, what are your views on what it would take for this Administration to overturn the "endangerment finding"? Should we have confidence that such an effort would a "legal morass" with an outcome so uncertain that EPA just won't go there?