Some questions: Don't the humans (I assume they are humans?) in the coal/fossil fuel industries have children? Grandchildren? Do these industry people know how to read? How to assess actual, rigorously researched and vetted facts that state without a doubt that humans have created climate change and that we are headed for disaster if we stay on this course? Do the men and women involved in these industries think their money will protect them? It won't. It won't. It won't. Or do they simply not care about decimating the earth, because they'll be dead and buried by then? But if they have any descendants, don't they care that their filthy legacy leaves their children and grandchildren with nothing but death--extinct animals, dead land, dead bees (so goodbye to our food supply), toxic, undrinkable water? I simply cannot understand the thinking of the people in this industry. More power to Attorney General Letitia James and the states suing our vile "leader" and his vile administration and Republicans.
21
Former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler needs to be booted from the EPA. But I have no doubts Trump would replace him with someone even worse, if that's possible.
Our leaders are supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
Now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
- John Kay / Jerry Edmonton
6
In case you hadn't noticed, or are squeamish about acknowledgement and/or terminology, we are at War. Full-blown initial capped War. Trump is slyly or not so slyly, strategically or fecklessly destroying everything including the ground we stand on. It is pointless to try and figure out why, or to argue with it. All the American people can do is to fight back, protect and defend...stop analyzing even stop sympathizing. We are under attack.
13
There's no such thing as "Clean Coal". There never will be.
Carbon Dioxide is a (natural) waste product of the life cycle. It is used by vegetation to build their living structures, and by doing so, they sequester carbon using solar power. Destruction of vegetation across the planet only adds to the imbalance of equation.
If the EPA does not have the ability/authority to regulate waste products, who else does?
11
Who are the business groups allied with the current regime? The people want to know. They are doing great harm to Americans in order to enrich themselves.
10
The Trump admin is building on the decades long effort to convince the public that government is bad , bumbling, and so expensive. The alternative is of course free markets and corporations. This has been remarkably successful. Now we have a divided Democratic Party with half fighting the Oligachic Government bad line, the other half fighting to preserve it.
We need to throw out the Oligargy,and promote the fact-based idea that corporations are bad, expensive,and are a danger to us all.
10
It’s good to see States coming together to sue the trump administration over the elimination and weakening of regulations over the coal industry, although it will more than likely be nothing but a losing battle.
If this case makes it to the Supreme Court who do you think the handpicked conservative majority will side with? Even the federal benches are being stacked with conservative judges who will rule in favor of whatever republicans want, regardless of the constitution, law or precedence.
We have known of the dangers of burning coal, vehicles running on gasoline, the refining oil, cattle & poultry production, and most everything else that is responsible for climate change since 1950’s or before, but nobody (Republican or Democrat) has done anything about it. Now, when we know without a doubt that our actions are destroying our planet at a pace greater than anyone ever expected all we do is talk about it, waste taxpayer dollars on more studies on what we already know, make promises that are never kept, and most of the citizens of the world just go on about their normal way of doing things.
I guess we may as well just stop with all of it. We are beyond changing and saving and may as well just accept that we will completely destroy our planet.
I’m sure that with corporations building rockets, and all the work they are doing for mass space travel, the wealthy and powerful 1% of the population will eventually be able to get out of here and settle on some other planet.
4
@David Parchert - no, the "it's too late, let's do nothing" approach is wrong and harmful. Besides, you claim that nobody's been doing anything about it and that's untrue.
India's been cancelling planned new coal plants to go with solar instead. China passed the US for most wind power installed and is the biggest manufacturer of solar cells.
In the US, a number of states have committed to 100% renewable targets, and wind energy is growing, especially in the Plains and very soon in the coastal states where offshore winds are great for making energy and the farms are fairly close to the biggest customer centers in the nation (less trouble getting permits for power transmission on the seabed than in crowded surface areas.)
Check out the different states by wind power capacity and generation.
https://www.awea.org/resources/fact-sheets/state-facts-sheets
There's a lot being done. We need to do more, but please don't pretend nothing's been happening.
10
Note; If this had been put into law through congress with the President Obama with their and his signature the states would not have to sue.
The impeachment of Mitch McConnell is necessary.
19
It is frightening to watch how quickly Trump et al are dismantling everything that was laudable about the US.
20
Republicans constantly talk about extremism, but it is they who are the extremists when the climate is changing to extreme flooding and storms of magnitudes which we have never seen. It is the Republicans of the Trump administration who also see the extreme changes in our environment and take profit and the past over the attempt to moderate the climate change. Yes weather is now extreme and the Republicans do nothing but keep us in the past.
14
While these lawsuits involving power plants are important, the federal government could still fight climate change in other ways by addressing issues with food production, education, transportation etc. The federal government would still be an important component of the much larger effort to fight the climate crisis. Therefore, it is very important to make sure the next Administration makes addressing climate change its top priority.
12
I appreciate and support most of the comments I've read here. I am encouraged that so many readers share these concerns. But, I don't yet see us addressing the loud scientific consensus that calls for far more urgent action, now.
We're virtually out of time to tolerate obstruction; we must move forward with worldwide resolve acting on a wartime footing to combat climate change if we indeed want to save civilization as we know it. Unfortunately, this is no exaggeration!
Without strong American leadership beginning in January 2021, India and China will abandon their urgent efforts to quicken their conversion to green power and curtail their coal-fired power industries.
Consequently, those tipping points for worldwide runaway warming, about which scientists have been warning, will be breached.
I urge you to press the Democrats to move on this aggressively and vote accordingly. We all have a lot at stake.
15
Burning coal not only emits CO2 but also numerous toxic substances including mercury. Shutting down coal plants fights global warming and reduces toxic substances in the atmosphere and oceans. Trump seems to be waging a war against healthy living.
23
How does this president and his administration have unilateral decision making powers on such matters? Where is our system of checks and balances?
15
@Isitme - this is within the system. The EPA is under the Executive Branch. Some of the checks and balances are coming into it by things like this lawsuit - since the EPA is required by law to manage pollutants, and the Supreme Court upheld the 2007 endangerment finding by the EPA that greenhouse gases are pollutants.
So this rule can be challenged in court, and it might be found that it doesn't do enough to qualify as EPA doing it's mandated job.
In the meantime, voters should be preparing to replace the incumbent who has larded all the executive agencies with people from the industries they should be keeping watch over. We have a swamp to drain...
6
I fully support the substance of the Obama plan, but the fact remains that Obama “legislated” it as an end run around Congress after he failed to get what he wanted. He exceeded his authority, just like Trump doing an end run to get his wall. Neither are in the spirit of the separation of powers. Bravo for undoing the Obama climate plan.
2
@DRS - no, the EPA is required to manage pollutants and greenhouse gases have been found to fit the legal definition of pollutants.
The EPA has rulemaking processes that have been in place since Nixon created the EPA. The Obama rulemaking is specifically part of EPA's authority. The Clean Power Plan itself is also presumably legal. It was placed on hold by the courts, but not found to be unconstitutional. So your claims are false.
And it's funny that you claim Obama was exceeding authority when the EPA produced a rule to manage pollutants, then say "Bravo" when Trump's EPA proposes a replacement rule that very limply pretends to manage the exact same pollutants.
3
"in the interest of few rich people "
Removing Obama's rule is actually in the interest of keeping the economy going strongly, as it does defying all the known precedents.
But this is important only for people who need jobs, or who have a pension fund.
The people who don't care are the pundits who make a living writing about such things...
2
@novoad In a decade or two, how will your own kids breathe without choking? Will they wear gas masks for their entire lives or live in a bubble like the late Howard Hughes? Hey, but that's all nonsense don't ya know? Like Trump says, climate change is a Chinese hoax. Really smart leader.
6
@novoad - so which specific jobs do you pretend to care about, NovoAd?
Green jobs are growing in multiple fields, as you can see by scrolling through this link. Energy jobs are increasing while coal-based jobs continue the shrinkage that started decades ago.
https://www.usenergyjobs.org/report
Power utilities have been shutting down coal-fired plants for years now because they're not cost competitive in most places in the country. So they cost customers more over time for their energy if the Administration tries picking winners like it is right now.
Jobs in wind and solar have been increasing rapidly. Wind jobs are booming, solar jobs are plentiful, energy efficiency is another field, and developing the devices and software for a modernized grid (way overdue) is also an exciting new job field. Electrifying transportation is growing demand for engineers and developers there, too.
Automation will slow some growth in those fields over time, but automation is one key thing that reduced coal miner jobs from over 220,000 decades ago to fewer than 60,000 today. Automation reduced jobs in the fracking fields after the 2015 downturn in that industry, too. But jobs in oil and natural gas are very boom and bust, anyway.
So, NovoAd, which jobs do you pretend to care about?
3
Coal companies in the US have all been declaring bankruptcy in the last few years. Demand is declining, seams in much of Appalachia have been mined out, and the price beating they got from natural gas is now being repeated with low-cost solar and wind.
Wind, solar, batteries are all continuing to drop in cost. But the coal companies buy Republicans like they were potato chips, and they've been shedding costs like pensions and healthcare for miners - dropping those onto the taxpayer while complaining about the burden of regulations.
So cases of black lung and silicosis have been increasing even as the number of workers in the mines has kept shrinking. Fewer than 60,000 workers in a nation of 320,000,000 people dig coal. The owners pretend it's about jobs, but they've been automating away every job they could, and in the East they took to mountaintop blasting with joy, because again they could reduce headcount.
Trump's loosened the pollution rules on the industry. He's loosened those "burdonsome" safety regulations that protects life and limb of the miners.
Yet the industry is dying, and it's time to let that happen. Cleaner, safer replacements are available and should be used.
Thanks, coal miners, for all the energy over the years. The current Administration doesn't care about your income or your health, any more than the mine owners that spend on him do. Let's find different options for you.
27
@b fagan
"Wind, solar, batteries are all continuing to drop in cost."
That is why we agree with yo0u that they do not need any regulations or special subsidies or mandates of any kind.
They need to compete fairly.
The coal industry is indeed dying in the US, since we have natural gas. Still, other energy poor countries may buy it from us. Let the market decide.
2
@novoad. For how many years have fossil fuel companies received subsidies and special regulations?
9
@lee4713 The proportion of support received by coal is infinitesimal, compared to wind and solar.
So I agree with you to bring the wind and solar support in any form, preference or mandates, to the same as for coal. An immediate cut of 97% would do it.
2
People forget that President Obama's executive orders (and agency rules) are now enshrined in the constitution.
1
@RandyJ "Obama's executive orders (and agency rules) are now enshrined in the constitution."
An executive order can be changed by a next president's executive order, without any reason given. This particular rule HAS been changed, it is no longer in effect. Some states want it reinstated, but that likely won't work.
2
Rolling back environmental regulations is in the interest of few rich people but applying full brakes helps the citizens at large.
5
rolling back environmental regulations to support short term financial gains is an existential threat to the planet.
americans would be wise to lead the way and invest in a sustainable/renewable/green economy with the same gusto they embraced the world war two economy and space race-based economy decades ago.
reject trump and his petroleum-funded republican enablers who are poisoning our future!
20
Nobody wants coal fired plants except a handful of rich people who don’t care about our health.
14
A crying shame both sides are losing – they’re both supposedly on our side...
Coal spews the vilest junk into the air even when its exhaust scrubbed – and spawns a legacy of mercury-laden fly-ash...
CO2 sequestration a sad joke – just look at the record on sequestering fly-ash...
But calling out CO2 as the issue in burning coal not even funny...
We're just beginning to understand just how far behind we are in civilian nuclear energy – but offering crumbs to fend off starvation...
Irony in all this...
Only sustainably-credible reason ever been able to conjure for foisting pressurized-water reactors on us – fossil-fuel energy industry deathly scared of anything downscale...
Fuel cycle may actually be secondary – have to go out of your way to create bomb-stock on the way to fueling reactors...
100 MWe reactors would've begged the question about a more distributed grid a half-century ago...
GWe behemoths – with their massive and needed containment domes – looked comfortably enough like coal plants on the regional and national grids to squeak by...
So – here we are now, with 30 MWe gas-fired generators...
Industry can no more avoid distributed power generation/co-generation than the mainframe computer industry could avoid the PC...
Only thing – mainframe computer industry jumped in with both feet – advancing the cause of electronic technology a million-fold, with US leadership on all fronts for decades...
Our utility industry – wants to make the 1890’s great again...
9
This, as all modern United States political struggles, is between SFS states and non-SFS states.
When our friends ask what the "SFS" acronym is, I say it involves taking liberties with species of the Ovis persuasion.
Take a good look at the political map of the United States. Urban, college-educated states are non-SFS, Those "revered heartland states" are SFS.
'Nuff said.
2
My advice would be to sell interests owned in the coal industry. Trump will lose the coming election, stripped of support by his own support of the death rays that coal unleashes upon the atmosphere.
And then a risen and angry citizenry will scuttle the coal industry for good.
7
@jr:
Yours is a pipe dream -- avarice at atmospheric levels is holding sway, with no sign of ebbing.
Great, spot-on sentiments though.
1
Any corporation that is emitting CO2 can expect to be sued for every nickel of the $20 trillion in property lost to rising seas over the next 20 years. Every CEO in America knows it. Emitting CO2 is death to shareholder value.
11
Why is it called ACE? Are they planning to fool low information voters into confusing it with the ACA and unwittingly backing it? This administration is on the wrong side of everything.
9
Thank God!
1
The cost to consumers and competitive aspect of electric cost to industry are legitimate reason to ease up the rules. This potentially precedent setting fight is not worth the potential loss in the courts. But it does get the various Attorneys General in the newspapers.
4
@Mkm - if by "the cost to consumers" you mean to support the best options, then reject the corrupt rulemaking the current Administration is trying to force onto the public. You want to protect consumers from high prices? Let coal die.
Coal is no longer competitive. Even without factoring in the looming lawsuits over groundwater contamination, it can't compete on price.
"In the past five years, national and regional trends have shown coal plants as increasingly uncompetitive next to renewable resources. Last fall, Pacificorp released its own analysis deeming 60% of its coal units uneconomic.
Other analyses, including reports from the Energy Information Administration, have shown renewable energy additions are even set to outpace natural gas."
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/majority-of-coal-plants-are-uneconomic-to-nearby-wind-solar-report-finds/551187/
And an example: "Idaho Power last week announced it has entered into a deal to purchase 120 MW of solar energy at a price the utility believes is among the lowest publicly reported to date. The utility signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Jackpot Holdings, with an initial price [...] less than $0.022/kWh.
The solar array is expected to be completed by 2022, and the energy will help replace coal-fired capacity at the North Valmy plant in Nevada"
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/idaho-power-claims-one-of-lowest-priced-solar-deals-at-22-centskwh/551984/
4
This is not about AG's. "Relaxing" the rules is existentially anti-consumer.
3
Kansas is not on the list. I worked for a company that maintained their power plants, which have no scrubbers. The polluted air from fracking comes north from southern KS, TX and OK and becomes smog over KC.
Nothing will ever change in the Midwest. TX doesn’t measure small particles in their air, only large ones. Research it yourself. They go around the EPA, they have their own state version.
Air travels right over state boundaries. Unless every state follows the same rules, it won’t matter as someone is downwind from states who don’t care.
13
@Dorothy We should give Texas back to the Mexicans from whom we stole it in the 1840s.
7
Here is the point that most fail to recognize. It does not matter whether thousands of the best educated, experienced study the problem and determine to what degree the planet is changing or how these changes will cause significant challenges that at some point may not have a solution that would allow our progeny to continue. The climate deniers fall into two camps. Those that believe it will negatively impact their personal ability to gain wealth (and enough of it so that climate change don’t impact them much - and frankly don’t care about their progeny anyway) and those that see acceptance of human generated climate change as an effect so big that it should only be reserved for their deity. Any potential personal acceptance of responsibility would require the moral bravery to admit that their actions have contributed to the destruction of our planet. For many accepting they have participated in this long developing destruction of our planet is beyond their ability. I can admit it - I have contributed to this problem, as have nearly all of us. From burning of fossil fuels to polluting with plastics. The penance we owe is more than our remaining life could pay. Yet we must try and harder than we have so far because we are edging closer to the point of no return.
11
@Marston Gould:
Sir,
Yours is a unvarnished, steely eyed view that is spot-on, with a potency and Truth that ought to turn heads and grab the attention of not only our elected officials, but of every member of our citizenry.
Tragically, few are likely to have the privilege, thanks in no small part to America's abandonment of reading in lieu of vacuous, soul-and-intelligence destroying cable entertainment fare, e.g., the Kardashians and their ilk.
A pity, that, and ultimately to our collective, self-inflicted demise.
4
@Marston Gould You are using big words. And nasty ones, like "deniers" . Deniers of what?
When are you going to explain why the sea rising, glaciers melting, etc started 200 years BEFORE the big emissions. And wouldn't it be a nice gesture, since you are so convinced that you can tame the climate, to offer your house and future earnings as a collateral, just in case we'll still have storms or even hurricanes?
Let's just pretend for a moment that global warming and climate change don't exist.
Don't we want and deserve to have the cleanest air and water possible for ourselves and our grandchildren? That basic premise should be enough on it's own to decrease our air and water pollution. The water affects will be much more expensive and painful than the prevention.
19
After effects of course
1
@Ron D:
Let's also close our eyes and pretend -- with blissful relief, albeit temporary -- that not only does the present catastrophe exist, but neither does the Buffoon-in-chief and his minions who blindly feed the crisis at hand due to ignorance and blind avarice.
(Aside: should there exist a planet where actually Intelligent Life resides, and those beings have the technology to watch us destroying our own home, it's a sure bet that they'll have zero interest nor willingness in rescuing us. Who could blame them?
2
Stopping global warming is one of the most urgent issues we have to tackle. A lot of countries all over the world are struggling with this big theme together. President Trump should think of this issue more seriously for the survival of human beings and the earth.
8
"Andrew Wheeler, the administrator of the E.P.A., announced the new rule in June at an event attended by coal-industry leaders, utility lobbyists and prominent deniers of climate change science."
This quote explains everything regarding the new nature of the Environmental Pollution Agency. These fossil fuel representatives write America's environmental laws, and they have never placed the environment first, just their profits.
With the 29-state lawsuit, they'll complain that re-tooling and changing to green energy will be expensive, and ask for a bailout.
They won't mention the $50 per ton tax break they already get for each ton of C02 and other air pollutants they inject into the ground. It's called carbon capture and sequestration. The tax breaks are raked in, but as yet, there's no safe way to store the gases.
In the unlikely scenario that Trump subsidizes their going green, he'll blame the cost on Democrats. He'll not mention the over $1 trillion deficit caused by his tax break for the rich, and the farm and manufacturing bailouts due to his misbegotten trade wars. Taxpayers pick up the tab.
Bravo to these 29 states! The earth's life is at stake. Next, the Trump Administration must be sued for rolling back protections for endangered species, which includes all of us.
14
This isn’t about the environment. It’s about campaign contributions, period.
14
@PaulB67. Didn’t Lawrence Tribe represent the coal industries?
I'm with all who do not want Trump imposed death sentences. Not to say it is pristine here, in fact diesel is much more in evidence than in the US where I have lived. And thanks to the US there is a huge push there for change...but Trump had nothing helpful to do with that either.
5
why other nations let us get away with destroying their lives and planet is beyond me.
12
@cse. It's our responsibility, not theirs, to stop this behavior.
Coal plants don't kill wildlife. "Green" plants do.
Obama issued the ruling that every wind or solar company can butcher 4,200 bald eagles a year with no questions asked. (And no, cats don't eat bald eagles.)
So that means that 30 companies can, no question asked, finish off ALL the bald eagles in the US in a year. Whether you like your bald eagles roasted by solar thermal or chopped by wind turbines, you won.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wind-energy-permits-raise-kill-limit-bald-eagles/story?id=38881089
There was a comment period, but every nature lover agreed to the kill, and it passed.
The whole point of electing a Democrat in 2020 is to have all birds and bats butchered.
For the New Green Deal proposes nothing less.
What bird, do you think, could survive forests of giant cutting blades?
Or, when a little bird follows a roasting bug in the focal line of a solar thermal plant, what eagle wouldn't follow the roasting bird and roast itself?
The bird roasting Ivanpah solar plant uses more and more natural gas
https://www.pe.com/2017/01/23/ivanpah-solar-plant-built-to-limit-greenhouse-gases-is-burning-more-natural-gas/
and ignites itself
https://www.wired.com/2016/05/huge-solar-plant-caught-fire-thats-least-problems/
without producing as contracted
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601083/ivanpahs-problems-could-signal-the-end-of-concentrated-solar-in-the-us/
So, if you want to have bald eagles go the way of the dodo bird, vote the Green New Deal.
Else go for Trump.
2
@novoad These are valid problems, but also feel like they can be solved relatively simply while continuing to develop clean sources of energy. Over time safety and efficiency will increase.
11
@Martin "these problems ... can be solved relatively simply"
They cannot. Wind turbines always kill bats and birds, especially big ones like eagles.
That is why Obama had to go for butchering the birds.
You either want a barren landscape, cleaned of all birds, or go for reliable energy.
Also, politicians should mention that turbines find usable wind only in the Great Plains, Dakotas down to Texas.
"Green" politicians are in California, New York, Pennsylvania where there is little usable wind. Yet they keep building wind turbines.
https://www.nrel.gov/gis/wind.html
And they make sure, most important of all, that taxpayers are never told the actual production figures. Only the installed capacity.
It would be much more practical to burn the money by the trainloads. If that weren't so polluting...
Here is what "clean" energy means. Energy poverty, with children in sweltering classrooms without AC. And people brought back in time a century....
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/world/europe/germanys-effort-at-clean-energy-proves-complex.html
"A new phrase, “energy poverty,” has entered the lexicon"
Yet Germany still has to build new coal power plants....
So, all we need is to have American people understand that the New Green Deal will push them back centuries.
While sea levels and temps data show clearly that the current warming started two centuries BEFORE the big emissions, and did not accelerate.
And then vote...
2
@novoad
A long-winded plea to vote to save the coal-burning industry. Which is a vote certainly to impair, perhaps doom our grandchildren.
Let's see. Grandchildren in one hand, novoad's coal stocks in the other. Which will I choose to protect?
9
The states not joining in the suit no doubt include Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia, West Virginia and other ‘red states’ where the red-hatted climate change denial mob rules the roost; where temperatures will soar into triple digits this week; where extreme weather events wreak havoc, cities are inundated and coastal property is washed away with increasing regularity.
To be perfectly honest, I’m weary of subsidizing these states when climate change related disaster strikes; and sick and tired of having their short-sighted, willfully ignorant environmental ‘deregulation’ crammed down our throats.
They once tried to secede to preserve a brutal, racist slave trade and a well-nigh feudal economy. I’d like to secede from any union that includes those states — to preserve the planet and progressive 21st century democracy.
13
Why bother suing anyone. Trump will probably blow up the world long before pollution will get us.
4
Do Americans realize how dangerous to their health our high rate of air pollution is? According to the NRDC, while we have the "highest per capita spending on health care, we are ranked #23 in the world when it comes to avoiding sicknesses and deaths due to air pollution."
US NEWS states that "more than 100,000 Americans die of heart attacks, strokes and other illnesses caused by air pollution spewed from factories, motor vehicles and even farmland" according to a new report that "contradicts an EPA panel whose members downplayed the risks" during a recent public meeting.
The NRDC states that "Trump and his allies in Congress aren't just advancing policies that will increase air pollution, they are also systematically increasing income and health care disparities that amp up the threat of air pollution to lower income people and some communities of color."
10
Of course Trump’s stacked Supreme Court will rule in his favor.
Why do we let lawyers make decisions that are based on science and health issues anyway? Those guys....and they’re all guys...don’t know coal gas from stomach cramps.
15
If the EPA can do this, the head of the NCI ( National cancer institute) should make sure cigarettes warnings are removed and cigaretteTV ads come back, just like when America was great!
14
We need to see if a Republican President can impose new rules and conditions for many things as he leaves office and impose them on unwilling liberal Democrats.
1
Coal is dead. Coal miners know it. Investors and lenders know it. Coal companies are going bankrupt because no one wants to give them money to continue operations at a loss.
On the other hand, some of the reddest of Red States, like Kansas and Oklahoma, are leading in renewable energy growth measured not as a percentage but in total KWHs of output, especially wind. That is where the investment dollars are going. Upfront capital costs are high, but can be financed today with very cheap money. And long term costs are very low, because the sun and wind are plentiful and free.
Once again, Wrong Way Trump is heading for bankruptcy, except this time it is the Federal government that is bleeding a trillion dollars a year in red ink, even as they try to prop up coal.
As Deutsche Bank learned the hard way, again and again, Trump is happy to throw bad money after bad, again and again. It is just a TV show to him and he knows a certain group of his viewers are riveted to their sets.
By the time this is settled in the courts, the coal industry might not even exist, at least in any significant way.
22
@Look Ahead "By the time this is settled in the courts, the coal industry might not even exist, at least in any significant way."
Yes, the GOP at one time was such a staunch supporter of market forces. They could well work in favor of the environment.
5
Good, let’s get this on the table before the election. We need clarity for better or worse for the power struggle between Congress and the President.
3
Just one more way that Trump is destroying the environment. What has he got against the environment? We know his hateful views about nonwhite immigrants but does he hate animals, trees, and oceans also?
25
@Bob My quick answer is that he knows nothing about these things and is not curious enough to ask any questions.
4
Gee, "extreme regulation" vs. "extreme pollution." I'll take "extreme regulation" for my ability to live and breathe, Alex.
29
Is there anything that the GOP has found that they cannot do wrong? It’s completely appalling. Their decisions have ramifications far from their own borders. Vote this scourge on the environment and humanity out! Please. Just vote. It’s easy and your duty, not just to your country, but the world!
22
I commend & give high kudos to all of these states coming together as a single voice, alas, one MASSIVE problem: this will ultimately end up in the Supreme Court of The GOP !!!
12
One of the least informative stories I've ever read. What is the basis for the lawsuit? What is the claim? Where was it filed? Any case could end up at the Supreme Court, so that's not exactly news.
This story could be summed up in one sentence: "Some states sued the EPA on unspecified grounds to block a regulation promulgated by the Trump administration."
1
How on Earth will Tesla owners charge their batteries without cheap coal sourced electricity?
2
@Michael - "What is solar power? What is wind power?" asks Michael...
7
@Michael
Today. Right NOW, it is cheaper to build and run a brand new renewable energy facility, including storage, than to keep an existing coal plant running. Unfortunately, we need the coal because we cannot build the renewable plants fast enough. Well, we can, but conservatives insist on everyone paying more for our electricity.
Technology runs ahead of you.
7
They won’t get help from the non existent solar panels that don’t pollute but Obama didn’t want.
Not thing is stopping states from doing something to address this. Look at California.
@Margo: Pollution diffuses over state lines. Too many "states" just undermine each other is stupid competitions Congress is empowered to quash.
3
Man caused CO2 climate-change is a hoax.
1. CO2 was higher in the past. “Dinosaur Era Had 5 Times Today's CO2. Dinosaurs that roamed the Earth 250 million years ago knew a world with five times more carbon dioxide than is present on Earth today, researchers say, and new techniques for estimating the amount of carbon dioxide on prehistoric Earth may help scientists predict how Earth's climate may change in the future.”
https://www.livescience.com/44330-jurassic-dinosaur-carbon-dioxide.html
2. Long before the Industrial Revolution, the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of warm climate from about 900–1300 AD, when global temperatures were somewhat warmer than at present. Temperatures in the GISP2 ice core were about 2°F (1°C) warmer than modern temperatures.
https://www.elsevier.com/books/evidence-based-climate-science/easterbrook/978-0-12-804588-6
3. Long before the Industrial Revolution, a significant heat wave occurred in Europe in July 1757. The heat wave may have been the second hottest summer in Europe in the past 500 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_1757_heatwave
4. Deep in the Depression the 1936 North American heat wave was one of the most severe heat waves in the modern history of North America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave
3
@Caterina Sforza
As predicted the Earth is warming rapidly, ice is melting and sea level rise is accelerating.
15
@Caterina Sforza
Humans didn't live when there were dinosaurs, and they weren't living in the same world we live in now. They also didn't farm or have an infrastructure built around the relatively stable environment we have had until fairly recently. Humans also can't survive in a world with 5x the amount of CO2.
It is a well known fact that ever since the Industrial Revolution, human activity has pumped ever increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and destroyed forests at the same time. How can all this crud being pumped into the atmosphere have absolutely no effect?
Even if you don't believe it, what is wrong with cleaner air, water and protecting the environment and creature that live in said environment, including humans? Do you like to breath dirty air and drink contaminated water? Do you like to see animals die and lose their habitats? Do you think humans can thrive in a degraded environment? We are all part of the natural world. We should be taking better care of it.
32
@Caterina Sforza Antarctica was a lush, verdant continental forest from shore to shore when CO2 was 600ppm.
Today's CO2 levels are in a deep trough that has chilled the planet and wiped out thousands of species. This planet is supposed to be 3-4°C WARMER than it is today and CO2 is supposed to be 500ppm instead of 406ppm to support plant and animal life at optimum levels.
4
Junk science in, junk science out. In a democracy or a democratic republic elections have consequences. The American left despises ordinary Americans and can’t understand why everyone doesn’t agree with them. To win they must make appeals to “authority” or “experts” instead of reason or facts and make assertions of scientific myths and dogmas unfounded in real science. That leads to judge shopping, delaying the demonstrated will of the people, that they look down on, and causing ever greater disrespect for the rule of law, the government, science and themselves. Everything is not an existential crisis. Elections have consequences. Let the winners do what they must. Be a loyal, thinking opposition. Then you may get a measure of respect from the electorate and maybe win a national election and a chance to do it your way. No one wants superstitious, hysterical, neurotic radicals running their government.
1
@antonio gomez
And when 99% of all scientists who study a particular thing agree, then it is surely junk science. Just because it is predictable and repeatable means nothing to scientists. That just proves it is junk. Now, what pundits on Fox News say, now that has real credibility among those who spend their lives on such topics.
6
And there is just so much good science backing the coal companies up and so many reputable scientific institutions agreeing that climate change is a hoax..
3
Thanks for the tips. We will remove from our platform “we despise all Americans”. It was never a good line anyway.
4
The lack of vision displayed by the Trump Administration has, to varying degrees, been the approach for decades. We have the statistics, the knowledge, & the technology to generate green energy. The only thing missing ? The will & vision. Our lack of these qualities defines complacency.
Eisenhower, a republican, created the interstate highway system, generating employment in road construction, the auto industry, & home construction for decades. I'm not a fan of the environment it created but ultimately we can repair that.
The important point? We invested in the future, using tax revenue to fund this investment. It's called 'VISION' ; what a scary idea!
Forgive me for oversimplifying the issue, but tax cuts will not create an environmentally responsible future. Investment in green technology, funded by taxes, can heal the environment while providing employment in new professions and industries for everyone. That 18 year old kid in W. Va who sees working in the mines as his only option might enjoy learning something else.
It won't be 'easy'; nothing important is. But those who resist this reality exhibit greed and complacency.
For those defenders of the 'status quo' shrieking 'subsidy' remember; the oil industry has been subsidized by various means, from individual lobbyists up to and including war. And, according to some experts, Trump's pollution creates major health problems in the future.
Will we apologize to our children?
9
We will not be apologizing to our children. They will be dead.
3
@CD - the other horror story in this is that the Republican Party used to at least face reality. Nixon signed most of the biggest environmental laws we have, and created the EPA, because we really needed it.
They used to be able to take a genuine conservative approach, they'd try to avoid taxes, they'd avoid too much regulation. Yet they'd regulate and they'd raise taxes to pay for things that the public needed.
No more. They've given in completely to the billionaire anti-public radicals and the groups funded by them. Grover Norquist had gotten all Republicans to take a no-new-tax loyalty oath, as if infrastructure pays for itself, as if things don't need to be paid for.
It's not just climate that the current Republican leadership is in denial about. They don't want a functioning federal government, and they're paid not to care about the environment or the well-being of the next generations following us. It's sad, there used to be Republicans who could succeed as rational adults. Those people have been hounded from the Party by the radical billionaires and by their funds, directed by Mitch and the rest of the party leadership.
You want to be attacked by a well-funded wingnut? Be a sensible Republican running for election on a pro-environment, pro-health, pro-most-people plan. You'll be attacked by the party.
My boss is Mormon and voted for Trump. When I told her that the Earth was doomed due to climate change, she simply shrugged and said it was all part of God's plan of the end times that the Earth would be destroyed by humanity. And this woman has a 9 year old son.
30
Than there is hope - that kid has a good chance of picking up on the idea that we are responsible for what happens to our own planet. Kids are smart. They know what’s going on. Where there are young people there is always hope.
4
Assuming from a religious perspective, God must have known that greed and temptation, the ways of the devil would win over mankind, as with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Or,
As with evangelicals, we are on the cusp of the Apocalypse. God will rescue those with redeeming values and the Earth will be destroyed by fire.
Or,
Perhaps we have been very blessed to enjoy such a wonderful world, filled with beautiful gifts of nature, sunshine, colors of all kinds, sunsets, the roaring of the ocean. A planet that even science marvels at and explores the universe in search of another, yet, is so vast in its beauty cannot be replicated.
And,
The greedy, the selfish and the conmen look to reap what they can at the expense of others to make their fortunes.
Perhaps Christians and others should realize the gifts we were given, and that just maybe they are with fighting for.
4
@Yachts On The Reg Really sick. I'm glad that I love nature more than religion. I'd like to add that God also created scientists who have studied this, warned us of this, and yes there are things we can do.
18
As a result of our decades of procrastination the most important line on the planet, the shoreline, is beginning to change.
In 2016 a paper (1) by Pollard and DeConto, which was widely reported at the time, incorporated mechanisms into a numerical ice sheet model: hydrofracturing of buttressing ice shelves and Marine Ice Cliff Instability.
Rob DeConto noted that his ice sheet model indicated that sea level rise over the next 100 years could be several meters under BAU. (2)
But as DeConto said, to be conservative they set an arbitrary speed limit (3) based on observations at Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland. That glacier has an observed calving rate up to 13km/year, so they told their model not to exceed 5km/year, less than half the observed rate at Jakobshavn.
Now as Richard Alley pointed out to DeConto, Jakobshavn Glacier is 45km up a narrow fjord, is 5km wide, and has a marine-terminating ice cliff 110m high.
By contrast, Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica fronts the ocean where there are very strong winds and currents, is 120km wide, and when it backs up it is going to try to make marine-terminating ice cliffs higher than El Capitan (1000m).
As Alley noted, “the wider glaciers and deeper beds of Antarctica will likely allow faster or much faster retreat than has been achieved in Greenland”.
1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X14007961
2. https://youtu.be/9z_oFDoQTXE?t=1418
3. https://youtu.be/aqVPlBf4ydo?t=3381
8
@Erik Frederiksen
Models. What do hundreds of other models show? where is the actual, unquestioned, measured data and real changes as reported in serious peer reviewed journals? Models are a classic example of junk in junk out. Real science knows that the atmosphere is very large and complex and beyond our ability to understand completely let alone predict the future at this time. Any honest scientist would agree. Why does the left have such a slavish, conformist attitude toward science and scientists? Scientists are people just like us and act much the same way and for the same reasons. They are no less prone to lies, incompetence and greed then we are. Should we make laws and beggar ourselves based on trust of a very fallible group of people. If we listened to them in the 1970’s we would be wearing fur coats in August.
@antonio gomez
Here’s the data;
The trend in sea level rise doesn't bode well for coastal areas.
1870-1924 0.8mm per year
1925-1992 1.9mm per year
1993-2012 3.1mm per year
Currently around 4.4mm per year according to this paper. http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/104007/meta
When you graph the above it looks very much like the beginning of a very non-linear upward curve.
graph of sea level rise through 2012 https://robertscribbler.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/hansen-sea-level-rise.png
graph of post glacial sea level rise, http://vademecum.brandenberger.eu/grafiken/klima/post-glacial_sea_level.png , note the curve at Meltwater Pulse 1A.
Ice sheet mass loss, notice the lines curve downwards indicating acceleration.
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/IceSheet/IceMass.png
11
@antonio gomez
You neither deal with, nor understand models. They are just simulations, based on the info one puts in, and no model is going to be perfect because 1) reality is much too complex, and 2) nothing man makes is perfect.
Your objection is that man does not make perfect things, so it is OK to ignore everything. It does not matter to you that, regardless of the input, regardless of the exact parameters, all the models point to, roughly, the same result.
"Scientists are just like us, and act much the same..." is just plain ignorant. Scientists must obey strict rules outlined by the scientific method. This is what defines science, and this is what you choose to ignore to foster your willfully wrong beliefs.
5
It is interesting that many states that joined included states that voted for Trump.
I hope the democrats cease this opportunity and make it their platform.
Climate, Guns, Student loans all winners!
15
@SridharC--I think you meant to say "seize" and not "cease." We certainly don't want the Democrats or anyone else ceasing this opportunity.
3
Do you mean “cease” or “seize” (this opportunity)?
Good that the states are suing. Keep Suing.
22
@EM considering that this may go to SCOTUS who may rule in favor of Trump and lock things in for a very long time it may actually be harmful for the states to proceed. Maybe vote in a new administration who will be able to more easily overturn the Trump era mistakes.
1
@jeffk
Does not matter. I despise the timidity of such cowardly thinking. Do the right thing. Let the chips fall where they may.
1
Good!
Now go after the gutting of the Endangered Species Act!!!
20
So, the Trump “administration” policy of, “if you can’t see the air, don’t breathe it”, is being challenged?
6
@JRB Trump's using the same sales pitch for air as he used for Trump stakes. . .'so soft, you can cut it with a fork'
Good luck with the law suit - hope it doesn’t go before a right wing judge.
8
Nobody is wanting to pollute, Trump is simply taking the abuses out. Harry Reid kicked ranchers off BLM land because of tortoises, then turned around and leased said land to foreign solar farms, who rounded up the tortoises and killed them. All while Reid made millions off the deal. Their where 1,000’s of instances like this. Ask Cliven Bundy.
1
@JOSEPH
Oh please.
You don’t like clean air?
Maybe not.
(I used to live in Houston).
6
Yes, energy producers WANT to pollute because their profits increase when they don't have to clean up their the pollution they produce. People like Cliven Bundy and his family are a bunch of free-loading anarchists who should have been rotting in federal prison long ago. How's life on the Troll Farm?
6
That is an argument for stricter enforcement and more regulations, not fewer.
4
Thank you, Washington State and Governor Inslee. Thank you, everybody else. Climate change is our largest challenge. And Donald Trump and his enablers and supporters are our largest national security risk.
20
With a coalition being led by Letitia James, NY Attorney General which includes of 29 states and cities to block the "easing of restrictions on coal-burning power plants" my heart is simply beaming with pride and hope.
Thank you all for banning together to fight this latest EPA rollback. I never realized just how good it feels to be a part of something so important, so wonderful, and so necessary.
Thank you for not making me feel alone as if I was the only one who believes this rollback can only HURT the environment, not help the environment.
You folks are AWESOME.
30
"Andrew Wheeler, the administrator of the E.P.A., announced the new rule in June at an event attended by coal-industry leaders, utility lobbyists and prominent deniers of climate change science."
How can we let the Trump administration get away with this? The Environmental Protection Agency's core responsibility is to PROTECT the environment for the American people. Wheeler is still working as a lobbyist for the polluters.
Like his predecessor, Wheeler has to go.
24
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Midwest coal-fired plants wiped out native fish and aquatic plants in a quarter of all lakes and ponds in the Adirondack mountains of NY state. The wilderness is finally recovering.... my heart is breaking at the possibility that the clock will irrevocably be turned back.
30
"Extreme regulations" means cleaner air, water, and other natural resources.
Weakening regulations and "easing restrictions on coal-burning power plants" means polluted air, water and other natural resources.
The choice should be a no brainer:
cleaner air, water and other natural resources for the planet today as well as for future generations to come.
38
Tragedy of the commons every day.
I cant even see the commons through all the smog.
12
The “tragedy of the commons” is that greedy rich industrialists control the Ttump government by campaign contributions.
2
Glad to see New York leading the charge here, how is that economy going? I think they should change the license plates from The Empire State to The Tax and Gig Consumers State.
1
Look at that picture of Mr Wheeler sticking out his tongue and biting it as he signs something he knows he shouldn't.
12
The election of Donald J. Trump was a repudiation of Obama and his policies. I support Trump's policies. Thank you.
3
@Southern Boy
They must have funny math and peculiar logic down there in the Confederate States of America, Southern Boy. Care to explain how Trump losing in 2016 by 3 million votes equates to a repudiation of Obama and his policies?
14
To wreck the environment and the planet recklessly? To give huge tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy that ARE not trickling down? To insist on going with his “gut” when it comes to Foreign Affairs? To spend untold millions politicking for himself? To support the NRA in whatever it is they want?
I don’t mind looking at regulations but you repeal them willy nilly, no. Trouble is brewing @Southern Boy, it’s brewing.
8
@Southern Boy DT lost popular by 3 million votes. Not exactly a mandate
11
It is important to understand, that there is a large segment of the population that earns their living from the extraction of minerals, drilling for oil, and cutting down forests.
People who live in the areas where these activities are common, strongly support Trump. In the United States, the greatest possible disaster - and at the same time, the biggest imaginable sin - is to be unemployed.
If we democrats want to win in 2020, we better have a plan that looks out for everyone in America. We need to afford these people the same respect that we have for Illegal Immigrants, holders of College Degrees that didn't pan out, Eagles, Dolphins, Whales, Convicted Criminals, and so on.
Any politician who thinks aforementioned class of Republican voters are "deplorable", actually has less intellect, and less character, than Trump. That might seem to be an impossibility, but it is true.
11
@Peter Zenger
It’s is equally important, no much more important, for the large segment of the popular who earn their living by the extraction of minerals, drilling for oil, and cutting down forests to understand that they are making their living today at the expense of their kids tomorrows.
34
@Peter Zenger All the more reason why the government should take a role in shifting employment to all of the supply chain tasks involved in producing alternative fuels, and in restoring the environment. Sounds like a lot of work, right?
11
@Peter Zenger And what kind of respect does this country have for "Illegal Immigrants, holders of College Degrees that didn't pan out, Eagles, Dolphins, Whales, Convicted Criminals"?
Separating immigrant families, detaining them in horrifying conditions for profit? Crippling an entire generation with student loan debt while predatory banks make more and more money? Rolling back protections for endangered species? Keeping people (predominantly people of color) in prison for decades for an absurd "war on drugs"? Making it nearly impossible for people getting out of prison who have served their time to obtain jobs?
Seems like the majority of Americans aren't being afforded much respect - especially by Trump. He also continues to do things to hurt his own base and yet here comes the "deplorable" tagline and the classic deflection back to Hillary.
10
Clean Power Plan, Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, oil drilling in the Arctic refuge, you name it -- it's all up for grabs. Pick your target public asset, have your favorite lobbyist make a big Trump campaign contribution, and it's off the races. Hurry, hurry. Get yours before it's all gone.
Here is the survival scenario. Most of these attempted asset grabs and regulatory eviscerations can and will be challenged in federal court. The process of obtaining final adjudications will probably delay the executions until after the November, 2020, elections. If the Democrats win, these draconian measures will be withdrawn by the incoming administration. If Trump wins, game over.
Don't forget to vote in 2020. Tell your friends.
32
@woofer
The nice part is that a lot of these polluters have wasted a lot of money trying to overturn regulations.
1
Thank you for joining this lawsuit Virginia!
22
Did Trump pay too much respect to the traditional owners of US land.....fossil fuel miners past and present?
2
In the book My Grandmother's Hands the author discusses "annihilation trauma".
trump suffers from the type of trauma and hence projects his annihilate trauma onto everything.
The man is so full of hatred. The man hates himself.
There is absolutely not an ounce of love in him.
You can't give what you don't have.
18
The Republican Party Platform For 2020 In 79 Words:
We stand for getting rich quick and dirty, keeping immigrants and dark-skinned people in their place, limiting the right to vote to a few worthy people, posing as friends of the middle class, destroying the environment by inaction and ignorance, shredding our good relations with other countries to tatters, printing and spending taxpayer's money as if it were going out of style and making this country a much unhappier place to live in than it ever has been before.
48
It's is OK for one president to implement rules but another president can't change them?
That is not logical. At all.
But logic isn't an attribute often associated with liberals!
3
Changing rules is not the issue. Doing it for short term profit is the problem.
16
@George Orwell
Is it logical to implement rule changes to logical rules?
7
Logic? It is logical to ignore the climate crisis, and all the science that backs it up? Sir, if Trump was changing the rules to save our planet, we “illogical liberals” would be all for it. That is not what this is.
11
"Andrew Wheeler, the administrator of the E.P.A., announced the new rule in June at an event attended by coal-industry leaders, utility lobbyists and prominent deniers of climate change science."
This explains everything regarding the new nature of the Environmental Pollution Agency. These fossil fuel representatives write America's environmental laws, and they have never placed the environment first, just their profits.
With the 29-state lawsuit, they'll complain that re-tooling and changing to green energy will be expensive. Trump will use this cost against Democrats, neglecting to mention the over $1 trillion deficit his policies have cost taxpayers, e.g., loans for the tax break for the rich, helping farmers and others hurt by his trade wars and tariffs.
They won't mention the $50 per ton tax break they get for each bit of C02 and other air pollutants they inject into the ground. It's called carbon capture and sequestration. The tax breaks are raked in, but as yet, there's no safe way to store the gases.
Bravo to these 29 states! The earth's life is at stake. Next, the Trump Administration must be sued for rolling back protections for endangered species, which includes all of us.
19
There may be reasons to more strongly regulate coal fired power plants to reduce pollution, but it's difficult to argue that CO2 is a pollutant as defined under the Clean Air Act. CO2 is critical to life on earth and if it is a pollutant, every human being is a polluter merely through the act of breathing. (I can't wait for California to regulate the number of breaths anyone can take on a daily basis. My sedentary lifestyle will become the new means by which we save the world from global warming!)
3
@J. Waddell
A dictionary is useful.
"pollutant[ pə-lōōt′nt ]
A substance or condition that contaminates air, water, or soil. Pollutants can be artificial substances, such as pesticides and PCBs, or naturally occurring substances, such as oil or carbon dioxide, that occur in harmful concentrations in a given environment. "
24
@J. Waddell - let's help you understand the fact that CO2 is a pollutant, and arguing that it is so is something that's already been done, documented, and found to be so. CO2 in excess has global problems we all know about. Water's necessary, but tell the farmers in the Midwest this year that it means flooding isn't a problem.
"On April 2, 2007, in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), the Supreme Court found that greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act."
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/endangerment-and-cause-or-contribute-findings-greenhouse-gases-under-section-202a-clean
Here's the link to the technical support document.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/technical-support-document-endangerment-and-cause-or-contribute-findings-greenhouse
Even a paper as far right as Washington Times can comprehend this.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/31/epa-endangerment-finding-tough-for-trump-to-revers/
7
Wow. You must be reading the 1988 version of science denial monthly. I thought the old CO2 is not a pollutant argument was dead and buried. No pun intended.
4
If this "administation" were to prevail in arguing that the Clean Power Plan exceeded the authority expressly granted by the statute, not only would such a ruling foreclose clean air, it would serve to further deconstruct the adminstrative state -- Trump's precise goal.
9
Trump’s only goal is to stay in power. Everything else is collateral damage.
6
Horrified but not surprised that Florida is not among the states joining the suit. Our new Republican governor, DeSantis, has made some small moves on climate change, but a lawsuit would likely cost him the support of large donors.
I hate how cynical I've become in the last two years.
Still, I'll now make donations to several of the organizations involved in this struggle for the future of our planet.
27
It is the duty of our elected representatives in government to provide an environment in which the pursuit of happiness is guaranteed. The environment and the climate fall under this responsibility.
21
Coming soon from the Trump administration clean, clean, clean coal. That should win over 5 on the SC.
15
@RNS
I'm sure he knows EVERYTHING about clean coal, more than anyone in the world...he will say they have huge washing machines at the Trump hotels...they can wash it there.
9
@CKA I'm sure he know everything. And so humble for a stable genius.
There is no such thing as "clean coal!" Bravo to the health and environmental groups, coalition of states and cities for filing a lawsuit against the E.P.A. Combined with another big lawsuit in Oregon, Juliana vs the federal government, our judicial system has a full plate deciding the future of a sustainable planet, our children and grandchildren's healthy futures, and the future of 100%renewable energy.
If a case can be argued on morality and ethics alone, I am sure Pope Francis' words must mean something. Laudato Si’ is Pope Francis’ historic encyclical on care for creation and our common home. It challenges us to “hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” through ecological conversion, changes in lifestyle and society, and strong political action.
25
A sincere and heartfelt thanks to the 22 states, 7 cities, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, the American Public Health Association and the American Lung Association for standing your ground and suing to “block the Trump administration from easing restrictions on coal-burning power plants.”
At the very moment, I never felt so surrounded by such support in a shared belief that can only help the environment as well as protect it for future generations.
Thank you for joining in this paramount issue. It’s a relief to realize and feel I am not alone in this struggle to combat the destruction of this planet.
41
@Marge Keller
And a special thank you to Letitia James, New York's attorney general. And folks wonder why I love New York so much . . .
2
No matter how much Trump tries to prop up coal, the technology is dead. I work in the power industry and what we've seeing is nothing less than a transformation over the past decade. Coal plants are a bad investment and most companies have abandoned them and virtually no one is building new ones. Instead, we build smaller natural gas plants supplemented by green power sources like wind and solar. The cost effectiveness of natural gas cannot currently be beat (significantly cheaper than coal), but some renewables are coming close. Everyone in the industry with an ounce of foresight knows that one day solar and wind will be cheaper than fossil. The only question is when the technology will get there. At that point, there will be another massive shift which will combine high-tech energy retention systems (the wind and sun don't supply all the time) and large investments in cheap renewable farms.
What our government should be doing instead of propping up a dead industry (coal) is channel some funds towards the R&D and technical training fields that will bring the renewable future closer. We need engineers and chemists and an army of field technicians. We're talking millions of jobs here that will someday fuel the economy. Our government could easily lay the groundwork, invest in a clean future, and give the economy a boost all at once, but I'm not holding my breath while Trump is in office.
86
@Mr. Adams
Very good analysis of the power situation, I only wish you had brought nuclear power into the equation. It would produce a reliable, carbon free base load power generation that supports the solar and wind sector. If we increased nuclear power to 60-70% with distributed smaller plants and filled in the remainder with solar and wind, we could not only eliminate CO2 but provide a safe, economical power system. It must be noted that there is NO PROBLEM with nuclear waste, only a political problem.
6
@Mr. Adams:
Thank you for a cogent, informative and insightful comment, one of the best so far.
By the way, as to your closing sentence: it may wil be best to hold your breath for as long as possible . . . and perhaps a gas Mask as well.
1
What is it that the Trump Administration doesn't understand about the role of the Environmental PROTECTION Agency?
31
@Tom Q
What is it that you don't understand about OVER REGULATION?
2
@George Orwell
Since we're currently at around 410ppm atmospheric CO2 we're obviously under regulated.
next.
7
@Tom Q
Under Trump it is the Environmental POLLUTION agency.
2
Yea it's about time! Of all the awful atrocities perpetrated by the Trump administration, the damage to our environment is the scariest.
35
The Trump proposal basically abandons the objective of reducing carbon emissions in favor of local power plant efficiency. How can this possibly stand when the Supreme Court has already ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) that it has the authority? Since that decision, both Bush and Obama-era EPA administrators worked diligently to formulate regulations for greenhouse gasses.
Along come Trump, Pruitt, and Wheeler, under the influence of the coal industry, who just say no?
21
It can never escape my notice that the head of the EPA is Andrew Wheeler, who has the same name as my deceased son. But my son, who dreamed of becoming an attorney, never would have signed away our rights to clean air to satisfy some coal profiteers. Too bad my Andrew Wheeler is not in charge.
24
@Barbara - "Too bad my Andrew Wheeler is not in charge."
Agreed. May he rest in eternal peace.
7
@tom harrison
Amen. What a heartfelt tribute to your son Barbara. It is difficult to understand those who fail to value and seek to protect the air that we breathe.
4
@tom harrison
Thank you, Tom.
1
Salt Lake City has some of the worst air pollution in the US from plants like these.
9
Under the Trump Administration, the people appointed to run the EPA have come, for the most part, from the fossil-fuel industry or from institutions supportive of relaxing environmental standards. Their sole purpose in administering the EPA is to increase the profitability of the fossil fuel industry, their financiers (Hedge Funds) and other Global interests including OPEC countries, etc.
In a nutshell, the Trump administration has sacrificed previously the hard-fought standards to improve the air and our environment, in favor of improving the financial "bottom-lines" of a small group of people.
The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat are all interconnected. The World is actually small, and political boundaries are meaningless when it comes to air quality, healthy food, as well as the state of the rivers, lakes and the oceans that provide most of our water.
History will be hard on the Trump Administration. Don’t be surprised if hats and t-shirts are produced expressing something sardonic along the lines of MAPA: "Make America Poisonous Again"!
30
Actions like this will help the United States win back some of the respect that it has lost.
11
The Trump "administration" has perverted the EPA 180 degrees!
From its mission to protect the environment and people's health into a weapon for ATTACKING the environment, the health and safety of people and of all living things, and a tool for advancing the corrupt interests of Big Coal and Big Carbon Emitters.
Just like they've perverted most federal agencies, "regulators," and cabinet posts into the absolute reverse of the stated -- and long-standing -- missions and goals. "Justice," "Health & Human Services," the "Consumer Protection Bureau"... the list goes on and on...
18
The EPA has a new mandate. 'Do what Trump and his rapacious buddies say'. He's president and can do, and destroy, whatever he wants.
13
As a former senior engineer for a very large power company, I contend we must get politics out of power production. We have now the technologies we need to get rid of polluting power sources, and they are CHEAPER than the polluters!
The cheapest an cleanest power now available to utilities is wind or PV solar plus battery storage, by actual bid.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/los-angeles-solicits-record-solar-storage-deal-at-199713-cents-kwh/558018/
Furthermore, 74% of our coal plants can be closed and replaced early and still save money, so why are we not doing it?
https://www.inverse.com/article/54399-solar-energy-cheaper-than-coal-whats-next?
24
@George Kamburoff: Trump's backers bought these plants for a song.
2
What would daily life be like, Yours and Mine,
on land, sea, and in
the atmosphere, if parallel to
“The Clean Air Act[which] requires the E.P.A. to
utilize the best system of emissions reduction
that it can find," both national and federal
Policymaker Personal Accountability Acts (PPAA)
were enacted, operated and effectively monitored
which would clean up political pollution?
Trump is speaking at a Petrochemical Plant in Pittsburgh; Pa. Attacking windpower. 79 % of Trump voters are old; white ; Republicans. How many of them will die of lung problems caused by air pollution the GOP pushes with their fossil fuel agenda? Not to worry; they will blame Obama for their lung cancer.
15
With the Supreme Court in the grip of conservative judges, America is becoming a polluters' paradise.
13
Spend some time in Phoenix after the wind hasn't blown anything out of the Valley for 4 weeks or Salt Lake City in the winter during an inversion event, which produces the worst air in the country, and you find out very quickly why we need the EPA and clean air rules.
31
@Scott - It rains a LOT in Seattle but the air is generally breathable. But last summer, there were BC wildfires that filled our air with smoke for about a month. Pretty nasty. The whole apartment smelled like a campfire. Warnings were given to the elderly and to children about being outside. You know, the usual sci-fi horror opening scene of a world of poison.
4
It seems that the Trump administration finds new ways to assault the environment on a daily basis. Today it's the power plants and endangered species. Recently, it was auto emissions and federal lands and oceans. We try to ward them off but they attack from a new position, ever mindful of short-term profits rather than long-term gains. Great thanks to the states who are doing battle with this administration.
32
It should be frightening to anyone with critical thinking skills that actions like this only worsen the global climate and the air we breath. This is an issue well understood by science. Any attempts to ignore or lie about the scientific data is to ignore what is actually happening to our planet and rapidly getting worse.
Future generations that suffer from human caused climate disruption will read the facts and condemn the parents and grandparents who supported Trump if only on this issue.
45
@A Goldstein:
Unless this inane, insane decision isn't reversed, there won't be many future generations of humans, and many other species, period.
17
Democrats suing because they lost at the polls...that is a surprise?
5
@antonio gomez maybe you should read before you write Mr. Gomez. Every state in this coalition is trying to sustain the need for capping fossil fuel emissions because of green house gases and the state of the world.
61
@antonio Gomez Kansas; is that a surprise?
9
@antonio gomez please climb out from under the rock where you and your friends believe this administration is not destroying this country. Every single cabinet member is there to serve an agenda. The American people are their prey.
29
Lawsuits will hopefully be a stop gap until Trump is thrown out in 2021.
48
As usual, it's racism (loathing of President Obama) and back-slapping perks for the wealthy that spawn policy. It should always have been about the air we breathe and the people who breathe it, but that's ALWAYS irrelevant and entirely ignored in this misanthropic administration.
Mr. Trump is odiously predictable, and consistently dangerous to all living things.
74
@drjillshackford
omg, this is the new tag line for Trump's re-election campaign! "Odiously predictable, and consistently dangerous to all living things!" It can also be the sentencing line used by the judge when he is marched off to prison in 2021, and we can engrave it on his gravestone.
16
Pollution, global warming, guns, opioids...nothing will change until we get money out of politics.
35
@Diego:
Getting money or out of politics is like removing oxygen from the atmosphere.
Good luck with that.
@Diego
We need to get Russia out of our politics too!
6
Imagine the grotesque scenario of the states having to sue this noisome administration not to overturn the progress of the previous one in limiting environmental damage.
19
@Plennie Wingo:
For some unknowable, bizarre reason Republicans -- who are quick to pronounce their unfailing love of God and Country -- hypocritically worship Money above all else. They'll rush to deny that, of course, yet actions utterly prove their priorities.
That they simply can't abide spending money in order to attempt saving our planet -- and our existence (and that of our children and grandchildren) depends on taking URGENT and determined a action NOW.
BREAKING NEWS to all Republicans:
You can't take it with you.
6
When this completely compromised, life-damaging administration gives us more coal and other toxins, we should make black lemonade and force them to drink it.
19
Thank you, Ms. James.
6
With all the money we will be saving by burning coal we can all buy bottled oxygen.
15
Bottles of clean O2 will be really expensive and only the owners of the coal companies will be able to afford it.
1
I would guess these republicans have no young people in their lives for they clearly are not concerned about repercussions from their actions.
15
@caljn: “I would guess these Republicans have no young people in their lives for they clearly are not concerned about repercussions from their actions.” Thank you for voicing my continued wonderment about why clean energy has to be a politicized issue. Moving ahead to cleaner sources will benefit everyone’s children and grandchildren.
1
Interesting to talk about the EPA's mandate. It's not much of a mandate when you have a political tool leading the agency to destroy the environment, indirectly harming citizens and animals with pollution, and destroying the one planet we will never find again for profit. The only mandate the agency has is to make as much money as possible with a scorched earth policy.
12
Right. Mitch McConnell's coal buddies suddenly appeared and kept hanging around N KY a few years ago. It was noticeable. The usual insistence that "Coal keeps the lights on" is now plastered via license plates and bumper stickers on many expensive vehicles around my area, SW Ohio/N KY. This is about cash and graft and McConnell as usual. We are to become China. As Pope Francis said, "...the gray world..." is to be ours. We are to have no say in how we are suffocated for GOP cash. So, as usual, the deadly outrages continue since we allow McConnell and Trump to occupy seats in our government. Like the gun deaths McConnell refuses to address, Americans are to suffer and die for no reason but cash for the GOP. He gets paid for this. Trump does not like the idea of global warming so it does not exist, hence coal is good. What do all these state cases cost taxpayers?
When can we see impeachment begin? That is the question American gleefully ask. We can't wait...
19
Not sure if most GOP politicians, their rich donors, and Trump himself actually think that the world would end within next few years and they need not to worry much about it but to enjoy their lives to the fullest possible extent, accumulate as much money as much possible by exploiting the natural resources, before human civilization in this planet cease to exist.
12
Thank you to those defending our environment, whoever you are and however you can put the brakes on the runaway destroyer in the WH. There are days during this eternal nightmare of an administration when I feel like no one is fighting for us--today you gave me a faint hope. For those who worry about who is doing what, state v. federal or whater, please: Save the Earth and worry about the other stuff later. Otherwise, there IS no "later." Trump will see to that.
14
REWRITE: Respectfully, the second sentence in para 1 is confusing. It should be corrected as follows:
"The ADMINISTRATION'S RECENT move could ultimately limit how much leverage future administrations would have to fight climate change by restricting a major source of Earth-warming pollution."
As it stands unqualified, "the move" ambiguously at best refers to the states' action to sue. Which is the opposite of what's described in the article's body.
5
@RR, actually, it is the likelihood that the suit will lose in the Supreme Court that would limit the leverage of future administrations to control pollution. All around, it is a confusing sentence, needing the development of context before introducing the concept. It's an ironic twist.
1
I find it unnerving, to say the least, that this administration is trying to kill our children and grandchildren while our states, which evidently actually represent their citizens instead of crooked industries and pay back, are trying to save them.
Does anyone else see the disconnect here? IT’S TRUMP and the Republican Congress. So, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
16
@RealTRUTH
I see it but I have almost given up up on ANY hope because the inpeacchment process will come too late, the election even if it happens will be compromised, any legal actions in court are fought tooth and nail by corrupt attorneys that should be disbarred, and journalism writes words but ever so late, and our voices other than folks actually laying down their lives nothing CAN change.
And even if somehow citizens rise up the damage down could already be fatal. Either Heroes come out under the ground or a saint or prophet or we just slowly lose our lives year by year.
I wish I could be more optimistic but with the layers of Koch Industries, machinations of Elliot Brody, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and the friends of the pediphile what’s his name I am unable to see through to a better future. And with the bravery of our First Lady and MRs. George Conway, and the wonderful tweets from Stephanie st the White House Com Riom office what else really can allowed to go wrong?
If the EPA wants to arbitrarily utilize economic costs that may be a burden to the energy firms...
... should also consider the other economic costs such as health costs, costs deriving from global warming, costs from destroyed ecosystem services...
7
We all breathe the same air, I cannot imagine anyone who would be so irresponsible as to compromise their own breathing. Go visit New Delhi where the largest percentage of the population succumbs to respiratory diseases. It can happen here with a reversal of rules which protect all Americans .
13
Trump is thinking two things...
How can he disband the EPA?
And
How can we get rid of the states?
They’re both just keep getting in his way.
6
Count on Justices Thomas and Alito to affirm anything that harms the environment.
8
Well, it looks as though the deaf, dumb and blind are being challenged by some pretty hefty states (Virginia--a coal producing state!) and established groups all of which are refusing to be pushed around by the Trump administration's pro-carbon energy rule, bravo to them all!
Of course if Congress would get seriously concerned and innovative in beginning to establish unprecedented support, both rhetorically and financially, toward serious re-tooling of America's ways of producing and using energy away from carbon-based resources, we'd be having a celebration rather than a legal fight.
The irony is that the longer we keep talking but not acting on carbon-based energy production and use, the more perilous it will be politically for Congress and any administration that avoids making serious changes addressing the global warming we're already living with.
Life before corporate profits--vote "No" on Trump in 2020 so we can literally have a future.
10
Why is the Trump Administration working so hard to destroy the environment for our children and grandchildren? Don't the Koch brothers and the other oil and mining oligarchs have children and grandchildren too? Why do they want to make future life so unbearable for their offspring?
11
@Joe Miksis SImple greed is the answer to your last question. They think all their money will insulate them from the disasters to come.
9
Everything goes all the way to the Supreme Court anymore.
Make American air like that of China and the other dictatorships that Trump is trying to turn the U.S. into.
1
We are now subject to an oligarchy. I believe the states acting in concert is the only way we have left to get our voices heard. The S.C. is now a political entity and the Legislature no longer works bc nothing can get through Mitch McConnell (pardon me, I meant the Senate). Fox News is running the president. It’s the same with our US gun problems. Whenever the population tries to speak up and be heard, we the people are treated by “our” government as if we are children in the backseat arguing over nonsense. Guns, pollution, trade, climate change: it seems to fall on deaf ears on the national level. They don’t give a fig what the polls say.
7
@ANNW Getting McConnell out of office is KEY for 2020. His opponent is a smart, experienced military officer, who can win if people across the nation even donate $10 toward her campaign. McConnell is not well-liked in KY. If the Repubs don't start listening to the people on a number of issues, I sadly think persistent, peaceful public protest will be the only way to force their hand.
8
Just in case, to the coal industry, the regulations by Obama's EPA were/are not extreme at all, just the beginning of a rational and responsible way to deal with the ravages of climate change. One must be willfully blind and deaf to allow pain and suffering, especially to poor countries unable to cope as well, as these United States. As it stands, we are fouling the environment and adding to cardiopulmonary disease...as well as premature mortality. Besides, Coal cannot compete even with oil and gas, let alone with 'renewables'.
20
I drive past Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Plant, a decommissioned nuclear power plant in Sacramento Ca, on a regular basis and simply shudder. Can these types of structures ever be torn down? These pillars dotting the country scapes are always a constant reminder of toxicity gone wrong.
3
NYC receives air pollution from coal powered power plants as far away as the midwest.
Air pollution both harms people and has a tremendous impact on healthcare costs. A few years ago there were 26,000 hospitalizations from asthma with 9,000 for people under the age of 16. People can die from hospitalizations from asthma and the cost (as of a few years ago) is from $10,000 to $30,000 per hospitalization.
There are other health harms as well.
Yet, this is clearly a political move and I can tell you why. The Trump administration has been trying to keep green no carbon emission nuclear power plants running and so called states that claim to care about carbon want to close them down.
A clear example is the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant which provides *one-fourth the electricity for NYC and Westchester County -- a population of 10 million*.
I suggest a win-win compromise: States trade keeping open the existing nuclear power plants and Trump retain the coal power plant guidelines of the Obama administration.
If the states really, really cared about carbon-based emissions they would keep the existing nuclear power plants running.
1
@David MD generally agree w/ your proposal, but think that it would be responsible to offer a proposal for the effective and efficient storage of nuclear waste.
2
@elshifman
Yucca Mountain is the site is the site of the national "nuclear waste repository, which is currently identified by Congressional law as the nation's spent nuclear waste storage facility. However, while licensure of the site through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is ongoing, political maneuvering led to the site being de-funded in 2010."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain
The fact that Obama wanted it defunded in 2010 demonstrates in clear terms that Obama in fact did not care about lowering greenhouse gases because if he had, he would not have defunded the Yucca Mountain site.
I believe Trump has refunded the site, because the NYT and others not withstanding, Trump promotes nuclear power which emits no greenhouse gases and Democrats such as Obama and NY Gov Mario Cuomo who wishes to shut down 1/4 the electricity of a 10 million population of NYC and Westchester Country.
1
Things that cross state lines should be regulated by the federal government: like commerce, electricity, gas, water, and pollution.
States have the right to regulate those things that directly affect the residents of that state and no others. Those "things" are few and far between now.
It's the 21st Century. Where is Buck Rogers?
17
So if the conservative justices on the supreme court have their way and find the Clean Power Plan unconstitutional, as inevitably they will, then the federal government will be helpless to negotiate treaties to reduce greenhouse gases and foreign governments will have to negotiate with each of the fifty states of this once great nation separately? Which will never, every happen. And since we are the greatest producer of green house gases, the conservative justices on the supreme court have the power to doom mankind. I don't have words for my outrage at these conservatives. If you voted for any Republican for President in the last 20 years, how will you answer your children? How?
67
@Bill
With the same lies that they have been trying to sell to the rest of us. Hopefully, the children will be better educated, will by the sheer nature of the world today be exposed to more ideas than their poor, or greedy, parents.
5
@Bill
Our greenhouse gas emissions are major but not as dire as you state. China was the world's worst offender with 28% of the worlds total GHG emissions, followed by the US at 15% and the EU with 9%. It is worth noting that the EU is the world's largest economy, yet the smallest contributor of the worst three. Our GHG emissions have actually gone down a bit in recent years (12% down from the 2007 peak) largely because of increased use of natural gas and increased carbon free power plants. The west coastal and northeast coastal states, among some others, have instituted policies to encourage power plants to generate electricity with non-carbon emitting technologies plus greater efficiencies. It is the cheaper gas prices that threaten the coal industry more than Trump's irresponsible policies. Based solely on economics, this trend is continuing regardless of Trump and any decision by the SCOTUS on this topic. Of course a favorable decision by the court against Trump's EPA initiative would send the downward trend a bit faster. I am more worried about Trump's attempt to freeze the Obama-era car and light truck mileage standards, as these vehicles now contribute nearly 18% of total US GHG emissions. In comparison our total electricity generating GHG emissions contribute 28%.
2
The largest and second largest coal fired power plants in the USA are both in GA. Both of these plants require at least a 125 car unit train of coal daily.
6
The argument that Obama's plan is too costly ignores the opportunity cost of doing nothing. We have only to look at China to see the cost of inaction. Make America Gasp Again?
59
The need for clean air, clean water, clean soil knows no political affiliation. However, the idea of “clean coal” is inextricably linked to the GOP. Unlike Trump’s Manhattan apartment, the world is not hermetically sealed and impermeable to pollutants. Bravo to the states who are fighting for the health of all of us.
36
I have grown up in a very conservative family my whole life. From discussing elections at the dinner table to arguing about a subject to the point that you won't speak to the other person for days, I've seen and heard a lot about politics. I've mainly agreed with my family, they make very good points and always have a strong responses to statements. But, global warming was something we always argue about. I like to read articles like this to expand my knowledge so I always have good responses, as they always have good ones for me. I think we should stop blaming the public for pollution and start blaming the big industries for pollution, because like it or not, using reusable straws are not helping the environment that much. While we are trying to save the environment, the coal industries burn cancels out that helpfulness of what we are doing. I think Trump is very lenient about coal being burnt in industries, which I think is one of his flaws. Overall though I think he's doing great, which is one of the many things my family and I agree on. We also agree on the fact that the public is doing the best they can, and are trying to help out the environment, but there is only so much we can do. I also think the industries get away with a lot more than they should. Overall, the reason I read this article was that my family loves politics.
@Kailey Jankowski
If our environment is a big concern for you do some research on this. Our president is generally considered to be the biggest disaster for these issues since we began being aware of them in the 1960s. He has put energy industry insiders and lobbyists in the charge of regulating the very industries in which they used to work fighting environment regulations. He has conducted a extensive rollback of environmental regulations irrespective of the reasoning or efficacy of these measures, doing nothing to address the problems these regs were designed to mitigate. They reject climate change as a threat and so have stripped away regulations designed to fight it . We now see the gutting of the regulatory analysis behind pollution standards that have drastically reduced mercury and other toxic emissions from coal-burning power plants. He is working to weaken and undermine the Endangered species act. They are altering US Forest Service procedures so that input from the public is not longer required before they allow roadbuilding, logging and other proposed activity on our public lands, even in protected areas.
Under this president, agencies that were created to serve the public interest in stopping the predations of industry on our environment now instead serve the interests of these polluting industries.
Don't take my word for it.
Research. Use environmental advocacy group websites like the Sierra Club.
It'a all there.
14
@Kailey Jankowski First, tRump's a pathological liar; 12,000 and counting (see Wapo) and this matters because when the bombs are dropping, theirs or ours, you can't trust a word coming out of his mouth, second, he's obviously a criminal, see Mueller, and he's possibly a traitor. If you're benefiting from his corporate tax cuts, there are 90% of Americans who aren't. Trickle down doesn't work, and the most moderate 4-5% wage gains don't really help against rents and real grocery inflation. Please check facts.
8
@Kailey Jankowski - "We also agree on the fact that the public is doing the best they can, and are trying to help out the environment, but there is only so much we can do. "
Nothing is preventing any of us from joining an Amish community and radically changing our carbon footprint. I have not bought a gallon of gas in 10 years now and have not been on a plane since 1991. I ride my bike or walk everywhere.
Regarding reusable straws and the like - Seattle banned all kinds of things years ago like styrofoam containers and plastic bags at the grocery. Everything must now be compostable and we throw out our used coffee cups into the yard waste bin which the city uses to make bio-fuel and compost for the city parks.
Seattle goes through quite a few Starbucks in a day and that used to be styrofoam cups that went into the landfill. Now, the city is on to straws and other places where we just waste. It all adds up, even reusable straws.
When the city first banned the styrofoam cups, we thought the world would come to an end. How can we keep our Starbucks hot while we are stuck in traffic commuting to our jobs?!!!!???? But the replacement cardboard cups are sooo much nicer and they don't get thrown into the garbage.
What's the latest thing I have seen in my neck of the woods? Free charging stations for your electric vehicle. Yep. Two free charging stations in my neighborhood so anyone can just roll up their Tesla and recharge.
3
Just like when George Bush tried to undo the Clinton administration's new, more strict, arsenic rules for public drinking water treatment plants, the prior analyses of the EPA will stand on their own. Of course, the big assumption I am making is that the courts will actually base their decisions on objective evidence.
14
@lisafriedman
Where can I find further information on the specific states and cities that are fighting to stop the rollbacks of EPA rules?
@Nature Voter... Making a list of the states and major cities that aren't partner's in NY's lawsuit is a place to start. To me, it's criminal that large, sunny, states like TX, NM, AZ, and NV seem to be oblivious to solar power. I'm sure it's not just the coal industry that lobbies the states, it's also the power companies.
4
@Nature Voter Here you are, from the SF Chronicle:
Joining California in the lawsuit are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, as well as the cities of Boulder, Colo., Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia and South Miami.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-files-55th-lawsuit-against-Trump-over-14300811.php
7
I have faith that the GOP justices will vote strictly along party lines in favor of the fossil fuel businesses. What would our SCOTUS look like if it took 67 Senate votes for approval? Non-partisan representing the American people?
14
People who don't think air pollution should be a concern should take a look at photos of Beijing - people wearing masks and poor visibility, with the tops of buildings frequently obscured.
29
@Cal What exactly is "clean coal"? Who can show me a a piece of it?
@Cal Or look at California or New York in the 1960's.
4
Who are these people?
EPA's action is an empty gesture though it certainly deserves to be opposed in the courts. The US DoE estimates that is a 50 year supply of petroleum left in the earth; for coal it's 100 years, assuming no growth in demand. Fossil fuels, aside from gas, are uncompetitive with renewables today, the question is simply how to scale up faster. Also, there is enough geothermal energy under the Rockies to support all of our energy needs according to an MIT study. We don't need coal and it's expensive and it's killing the environment. But we do need to conserve all fossil fuels because they are the source of carbon for all sorts of materials from pharmaceuticals to fertilizers to nylon. The left ought to grasp this and fight about running out of energy, that would get more people's attention.
10
I don't like states determining energy and pollution matters. Witness rampant fracking in PA with the industry doing so tax free. Should any disaster to water resources require cleanup taxpayers will be left paying the tab as well as suffering like Flint Michigan. There are issues that are global and should be regulated by the Federal Government regardless of what Trump's cronies believe Period! Deniers of climate change science are paid industry shills as tobacco doctors and lobbyists were. We've been down this road before and MUST PREVAIL!
188
@Rodrian Roadeye, I completely agree with you but unfortunately federal regulation of air and water quality are based on the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution which most conservative justices think is liberal overreach that they would love to deny.
8
@Bill These Justices are overstepping their duty to us and need to pay a price for Party politics. Perhaps an overseeing body of non-Partisan monitors is necessary, though that seems like we would have to bring in UN members or something to be more impartial. Even a foreign entity? Sounds un-American but no more so than what we have now. I'm grasping for straws here to abolish an unfair system.
1
@Bill
Except that states objecting to pipelines through them via the Clean Water Act is no longer legal, per these same states’ rights hypocrites.
5
No problem here. Trump doesn’t care if the planet is around after he is gone. It might as well be a barren wasteland when the Donald is no longer able to breathe the air.
41
@GlennC
The "planet" will be fine.
As for flora...not so great.
1
"The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity"
That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one, "clean coal". These organizations along with the current EPA Administrator are destroying any chance we have for saving the lives of future generations. And the Supreme Court is complicit by just reading some dumb law books to make their decision. They need to read whats going on in Phoenix with 128 days a year of 100+ degree temperatures. Thats the entire U.S. by the turn of the next century.
They're dooming our grandchildren to a life of misery.
41
@cherrylog754 Yep...this is an oxymoronic era at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The topper is "President" Trump....
2
@cherrylog754 - "They need to read whats going on in Phoenix with 128 days a year of 100+ degree temperatures. Thats the entire U.S. by the turn of the next century."
I seriously doubt that Seattle will share those temps:) I wore a hoody almost everyday in July this year.
Andrew Wheeler, the former coal lobbyist who previously worked in the law firm Faegre Baker Daniels representing coal magnate Robert Murray is now the administrator of Trump's Environmental Pollution Agency.....he announced the new pollution rules in June at an event attended by...... coal-industry leaders, utility lobbyists and prominent deniers of climate change science.
Happy, Republistan ?
Isn't more pollution of the air, water, soil and human bodies what we need.
What kind of masochistic, misanthropes vote Republican ?
129
@Socrates
"Conservative"...NOT!
3
For all Republicans and all the corporations who support them, ANY regulation is “extreme regulatory.”
End of story.
20
Last night in MSNBC, Brian Williams’ reporting left me with the impression Donald Trump had just eliminated the EPA entirely and offered bounties on bald eagles. Objective, as always.
6
Coal is the filthiest form of energy on the planet, John Doe.
Why support pollution ?
9
@John Doe
If you I would check my comprehension skills.
4
@caljn, no seriously, there was no reference to the present regulation revision or its impact, just s long winded tribute to the whole concept of environmental protection going back all the way to Richard Nixon while his guest waved a Greenpeace while reading from Thoreau.
This fantastic news .
7
Why, exactly?
Do be specific, and do cite the science.
As if.
2
Stand and be counted!
11
Perhaps in 40 million years some new species will dig down through the rock layers and discover that the 6th mass extinction was caused by silly hominids which knew better than to dig up and burn prodigious amounts of fossil fuels over a very short time span.
15
But Trump's EPA is not mandated to protect citizens from a toxic environment. Its' job is to strip all environmental health and protection from US law and rape the earth for all it is worth. Its' job is to ensure a rapid increase in childhood cancers, asthma and neurological development diseases. Its job is to do the bidding of the multi-national conglomerates who now control the "EPA" for their own purposes. You asked for it America. You got it: A government that has declared war on its own citizens. Not even your AK 47 can help you now.
32
@WR
Which always makes me wonder....
Are there people out there who actually remember just how disgusting our urban air and waterways were prior to the 1980s?
6
@WR
that is a very powerful (and sadly, correct) comment...
2
@WR Correction: the overwhelming majority of Americans did NOT ask for this.
7
Don't any Trump supporters have any complaints about these rollbacks which affect all of us ?? It's gotten to the point where all Americans and every American Institution is Vulnerable !! Even our country's national symbol...the Eagle is threatened by Roll Backs of Regulations Protecting them?? Tired of Winning? MAGA? Come on Trump Supporters, GOP, Barr, Fox Nation....what gives?? You people have to breathe the same air,drink the same water and live in the same country as the rest of us. Where is this MAGA?? I can't see it !! Please Explain ??
39
@Dave
Only complaint I have is the seeming ability of One President to declare something by Executive Order that a subsequent President has no ability to reverse, by Executive Order. So until that contradiction gets addressed not paying any attention to the rollback.
@ Dave-
They think Trump is ordained by God, so everything he does is A-OK. It's all part of God's plan. Watch "The Family" on Netflix if you want to know more!
4
If memory serves, the Clean Power Plan was an executive order by the OBama Adminsitration, and therefore is not part of any legal act. Thus, there is no legal challenge posasible for governmentasl policy that is at the digression of the curent Administration. Sorry, folks, that's the law.
1
@Robert Miller - the Clean Power Plan was part of rulemaking at the EPA as part of its obligation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The Supreme Court upheld the EPA's Endangerment Finding that makes it a requirement that they enact rules to reduce greenhouse emissions, to improve the health and wellbeing of Americans.
So sorry, Robert Miller, it's the law.
The EPA's extensive, legally-required evidence gathering for developing the CPP also documented that it would reduce costs for the public, especially in reduced healthcare costs and in improved productivity (less illness-related absences in businesses).
So the recent coal lobbyist is merely trying to give a present to his former employers, a reward for them spending so lavishly for the "biggest inauguration party ever" that our insecure incumbent needed. The result won't be saving the coal industry, because their power's too expensive now, but it will let the corpse linger, at all of our expense.
8
Your handling of the language does not suggest considerable legal acumen.
2
@Robert - I have to take a shot while drinking coffee - Isn't our legal system in another language altogether, i.e., Latin? So, how does his handling of English make any suggestion about his knowledge of Latin?
Our “legislators “ need to take a stand , letting the man who would be king know that there really are 3 branches of government. After the Supremes let Trump bypass Congress and steal already appropriated money, it apparently emboldened him to repeal the endangered species act via executive “rule”. He is not the Congress, and it should take Congressional action to overturn this law. Same for the environmental regs- no one appointed him king
19
@Pete Myer
Technically Congress is the Senate and the House, and of course the Executive Branch...but it really boils down to TWO branches of Govt....The Executive and the sniveling McConnell willing to kiss Trump's you know what...and the House!
No doubt Trump needs to be gone on Jan 20, 2021, and the Senate needs to have a super majority of Democrats if we are ever going to get anything accomplished.
2
The lead photo in this article is of a coal-fired power plant in Castle Dale, Utah, yet I don't find Utah is one of the 22 states joining in the suit. Is there some significance to this fact?
1
Last year Noam Chomsky described the Republican organization as the most dangerous in human history.
When asked if that was not an outrageous statement he replied that they are uniquely dedicated to the destruction of organized human life through their denial of climate science.
61
Thank you so very much Letitia James and all the others fighting this toxic pollution for the sake of us all. Even in Vermont, were our air is cleaner than most, we still breathe in the toxic wafts coming from the midwest, we can still get sick, and die over time, from such pollution. And then of course there is Climate Change. These are not small matters. You either want the world cleaner for yourself, your kids, your grandkids, your neighbors, and for the earth itself, or you on the other side, the side of greed and denial and utter foolishness and ignorance. Thank you all for fighting this much needed fight.
222
@moosemaps
I wouldn't consider CO2 as "toxic pollution." It is in fact vital to life here on earth, and since we all exhale CO2 your position makes every living human (and animal) a toxic polluter.
@moosemaps
Some people care more about a dollar than the fact that they're likely leaving their kids and grand kids a world that they'll have to struggle to survive in.
11
@J. Waddell
This is not just about carbon - that's a whataboutery argument.
Coal combustion releases nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter (PM), mercury, and dozens of other substances known to be hazardous to human health. Aging coal plants "grandfathered" in after passage of the Clean Air Act have been particularly linked to large quantities of harmful emissions.
5
This well founded suit is based in law and fact.
It will fail at the SCOTUS level because Roberts and his big bid'ness cabal on the Court don’t care about either when it comes to corporate profiteering harming Mother Nature.
Purity of the Turf in ‘16 is becoming increasingly more expensive!
6
If this case reaches "the Supremes," I fear that the pro republican-gerrymandering/ant-Voting Rights Act- protections majority -- a 'species' of 5 not yet as endangered as we need them to be (nor as they shall become fully in time) -- will make of all of us a species so endangered as to 'occasion' our demise 'ere we hoped to see their own.
8
Why don't the 28 Republican states build a dome over their states (don't forget the wall) and inhale their own pollution. Sensible people's attempt to restrict pollution is rebuffed by greedy coal-industry leaders, utility lobbyists and prominent deniers of climate change science. Their defense that Obama's plan is too costly is outrageous. What about the rise in healthcare costs due to illnesses caused by pollution. Has common sense completely left this country?
19
As a 62 year old woman who suffers with asthma, I am deeply concerned for everyone’s health. I just spent a week in Los Angeles, where the words “unhealthy for people with sensitivity to the air” popped up on my weather app on my phone. It’s taken a couple of days being back in New York and staying on inhalers for me to start breathing comfortably again. And the air is cleaner now than it once was! What will happen to all the children spent breathing in a lifetime of compromised air? If anyone has suggestions as to where to donate to groups fighting this latest attempt to suffocate us, please forward that information. Thank you, Robin Seibert
25
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Delhi, Chicago, Bozeman, and Beijing.[1] Founded in 1970, the NRDC has over 3 million members, with online activities nationwide, and a staff of about 600 lawyers, scientists and other policy experts.
NRDC's stated priorities include curbing global warming, "reviving the world's oceans," defending endangered wildlife and wild places, protecting the public health by preventing pollution, ensuring "safe and sufficient water," and fostering "sustainable communities".
2
@Robin Seibert I live in LA and my relatives back east don't understand that the air here is so much worse than NYC. Los Angeles as it is set up now is unsustainable!
Thank you to the coalition of states and cities. Trevor Noah said recently in response to fighting for what is right, it all comes down to “trying.” “Trying”, as he pointed out, is the essence of the idea of America. So thank you, all of you, everyone who is trying to make it better, thank you for trying. Please keep trying (as Noah says) “to make it more perfect”. I dearly hope you win. If you do, we all win. It will be for a win for all humanity.
23
@sashakl
trevor is not worthy of the seat he occupies.
1
The carbon cycle for the last 2 million years was doing 180-280ppm atmospheric CO2 over 10,000 years and we’ve done more change than that in 100 years. The last time CO2 went from 180-280ppm global temperature increased by around 5 degrees C and sea level rose 130 meters.
(graph of the last 400,000 years of global temperature, CO2 and sea level
http://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/images/impacts/slr-co2-temp-400000yrs.jpg )
One amplifying feedback alone out of dozens—loss of albedo or heat reflectivity from Arctic summer sea ice melt—over the last several decades has been equivalent to 25 percent of the climate forcing of anthropogenic CO2. And that will continue to increase as that ice disappears by mid century.
The Titanic sank because by the time the lookout called the warning the ship had too much momentum to turn. Earth’s energy system and climate have a lot more momentum, e.g. we've already likely locked in ~6 meters of sea level rise from the marine sectors of Greenland and West Antarctica, and decade to decade warming in the near term is also locked in.
That momentum is building and the higher we let global temperatures rise the greater the risk of them going really high as amplifying feedbacks strengthen.
15
@Erik Frederiksen
I've thought about the Titanic as well.
I believe 45 seconds passed between siting and impact. What if it had been 55 or 65 seconds, and they had more time to bring the ship about? Would the blow have been less severe, such that that last water tight compartment didn't flood?
That might have been the difference between having an awful mess on their hands, and an utter disaster. It still would have been messy. Boats would have been lowered, maybe with some casualties. One can imagine the lawsuits. However, with a bit more warning,the ship would have likely remained afloat.
We have known we were entering the "ice field" of global warming for decades now. How many lost decades are the equivalent of those unavailable seconds in 1912?
Reagan beat Carter in 1980, promptly removing the solar panels from the WH roof lest they send the wrong message: 4 decades lost.
Bush-1 was talked out of dealing with climate change by Chief of Staff John Sununu: 2 decades lost.
The iceberg is looming.
Is there no end to the horrors this administration will inflict on our environment? Between this and the news about the Endangered Species Act yesterday, it almost feels as though Republicans are actively trying to destroy the planet. Do they not have children? Are they so greedy and short-sighted that they’re unable to see that the short-term profits aren’t worth the long-term devastation? Anyone who supports this sort of legislation and also claims to be pro-life needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror.
45
@Elizabeth Isn't it quite clear by now that people who claim to be "pro-life", aren't? They don't care about ensuring access to birth control, helping children once they're born, or about climate change. They may be anti-choice, but they sure aren't concerned with life.
8
@Kathy, I agree completely. The people who claim to be “pro-life” frequently seem to be pro-gun and in favor of gutting programs that serve underprivileged children as well. They couldn’t care less what happens to all the fetuses they claim to be protecting once they’re born. Anti-choice, plain and simple.
4
@Elizabeth Stand by. It's only Tuesday.
1
There are two major power grids and three minor power grids in the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.
Texas Interconnection is minor power grid. Oddly, Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Texas)
As for solar farms:
Potential generation[edit]
Covering half of the roof with 10% efficient photovoltaics is sufficient to generate all of the electricity used by an average family in Texas. Solar farms are more cost effective in West Texas, where insolation levels are greater.[28] The US uses about 100 quads of energy each year.[29] This number is expected to be reduced by 50% by 2050, due to efficiency increases.[30] Texas has the potential to generate 22,786,750 million kWh/year, more than any other state, from 7,743,000 MW of concentrated solar power plants, using 34% of Texas,[31] and 131,200 million kWh/year from 97,800 MW of rooftop photovoltaic panels, 34.6% of the electricity used in the state in 2013.[32]
Texas electricity consumption in 2010 was 358,458 million kWh, more than any other state, and 9.5% of the US total.[33]
Lest we forget about the shale and natural gas abundance in the Permian Basin.
11:52A CDT
8/13/19
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Texas)
2
Thanks to the courts and our system of law which at its best protects us from lawless, careless, self-serving government and corporate officials who work only for the next buck.
2
Here we see it, transparently, once again:
Ecological destruction is the continuation of Republican politics by other means.
15
"Under the Clean Air Act, the E.P.A. is required to use the “best system of emissions reduction.” "
The CAA authorizes the EPA to issue regulations that require a producer of a pollutant, in this case CO2, to use the best method of reducing the emissions of that pollutant. So you can tell a coal fired plant to reduce its particulate matter or NOx or CO2, but you cannot demand that it reduce its "pollutants" to zero if there is not available technology to do so. The Trump regulations reflect the law.
Trump has not rolled back Obama regulations. Those regulations are illegal and were blocked because they violate the CAA.
If Obama wanted the options of switching to cleaner energy sources like gas, solar or wind; putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions; or using technology that could capture and store carbon dioxide rather than releasing it into the atmosphere, he was required to talk the Congress into passing laws to do so.
The Pelosi House passed a carbon cap and trade bill in 2009. Why didn't Obama jawbone the 60 Democrat super majority in the Senate to at least vote on it? The narrative that Obama initiatives have been foiled by Trump is fraudulent.
Only in third world dictatorships and totalitarian states does the ruling elite get to impose its will without input from the legislature.
Trump regulations reduce CO2 production. Trump accomplished what Obama was unable to do. That is fact, not opinion.
1
@ebmem - the Clean Power Plan was placed on hold by the courts. There was NO determination that it was, in fact, illegal or unconstitutional.
Fact, not your opinion.
As for your "ruling elite" silliness, the plan set emissions targets and let states come up with their own ways to meet the targets - not exactly the jack-booted thuggery you want people to think. The federal government would only come up with a plan for a state if the state failed to do so on its own.
It didn't even do things like ban coal plants. If a state wanted to continue poisoning its air and water (and that of its neighbors) with costly coal, the state could trade credits with cleaner states to make up for the excessive emissions from their coal plants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Power_Plan
Coal's going away, and should. I don't dismiss the benefits we got from it, but we have better alternatives now - it is time for it to go the way of asbestos, PCBs, lead and all the other things that were helpful but very harmful.
6
Here's hoping the courts find it legal for us to save ourselves from catastrophic run-away climate change, food supply collapse and mass refugee relocations.
10
What comes next, rescinding the 13th Amendment?
5
Almost all of trump's misguided and uninformed policies end up with a court challenge. He has extremely poor judgement, is uninformed on most issues and usually chooses the inhumane, most nasty and cruel thing he can think of. What leadership! Where would we be without the Courts to stop his madness. Of course trump has spent his entire life in litigation. So he will try to drag the country down and backwards, as he is.
21
Am again thankful for the courts as this administration wages war on our planet and environment in a thinly veiled gift to the fossil fuel cronies who support Trump. May they succeed and stop the foolish reversal of sane regulation of outdated and inefficient fuel sources.
7
The cleanest coal never leaves the ground. Under the Obama Administration, the EPA did its job, protecting the public health. A new rule forced monitoring and reporting of leakage from coal ash disposal sites into groundwater. Trump's trying to pull that regulation, too. Probably because of the results the monitoring shows. "Clean Coal"? Make everyone appointed by the current administration drink the water from these sites.
"Researchers analyzed data from more than 4,600 groundwater monitoring wells around U.S. coal plants and ash disposal facilities. All told, 91% reported water pollution levels unsafe for human consumption "even after we set aside contamination that may be naturally occurring or coming from other sources," they wrote.
A majority of plants reported unsafe levels of arsenic, a carcinogen that can also impede brain development. More than 60% reported unsafe levels of lithium, which can also cause neurological problems. And most plants reported multiple contaminants, according to the researchers.
"The majority of coal plants have unsafe levels of at least four toxic constituents of coal ash," they wrote."
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/virtually-all-coal-plants-monitoring-groundwater-show-ash-pollution-repo/549648/
12
I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. As a retired ibew member we all know coal is dead it just hasn’t been buried yet. Combined cycle power plants are a bridge to the future and the guys that work in those plants know they are temporary at best.
21
@JD - skip the bridge. Fracking is producing gas but not profits for the investors - year after year. So how long will Wall Street types prop up that industry.
In the meantime, combined cycle is slipping.
https://climatecrocks.com/2019/07/30/natural-gas-is-big-but-future-increasingly-bleak/
Plus the industry that takes lots of land, huge amounts of sand, huge amounts of water, produces often-toxic brines (aka "produced water"). And all that steel and concrete for every foot of all those hundreds of thousands of wells. We'll need to keep an eye on each one for a really long time since many extend through our groundwater drinking supplies.
And it creates its own damaging forces:
"There have been plenty of high-profile landslides dislodging and destroying oil and gas pipelines over the past few years, just as rains have wreaked havoc outside the oilfield — collapsing Route 30 in East Pittsburgh last year, opening up a giant sinkhole at a shopping plaza in Greensburg last month.
The oil and gas industry is both a victim and a perpetrator of this dislocated earth.
With hundreds of well pads and thousands of miles of pipelines newly added to the ground in Pennsylvania over the past decade, the industry’s development disturbs the surface and eliminates some trees and vegetation that would otherwise absorb rainfall."
https://www.post-gazette.com/business/bop/2019/08/05/Too-much-rain-is-messing-with-pipeline-operators-infrastructure-plans/stories/201908040010
1
Glad to see that North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Florida have joined forces to be part of this coalition to save our environment. To use the word "save" is not hyperbolic. Daily we read of the threat to our environment. This is no conspiracy theory which seems to be today's go-to explanation for too many events and happenings not only nationally but also globally. We think of all the needs of Americans; we think of all that the every day citizen is losing under this Trumpian Era of greed and corruption. There is a lot. Yet what is by far the worst of the worst is how our health as well as that of future generations is daily being threatened by the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat. We yearn for accessible and affordable health insurance. But where does it get us if the root of many diseases like cancer is pervasive and invasive. We are neither safe in our homes nor outside of them. I support our scientists, these states, cities, and leaders who understand the trajectory of global warming. It can be our end individually and as a nation if we do not end the destructiveness of this administration and its abetters in the Republican Party.
50
"The Obama-era options included switching to cleaner energy sources like gas, solar or wind; putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions; or using technology that could capture and store carbon dioxide..."
In the long run, the ineffectual patchwork of Obama-era options are no better than the Trump-era options.
"Nuclear power paves the only viable path forward on climate change." - Climatologists James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Tom Wigley, Ken Caldeira
4
@BobMeinetz - "are no better than the Trump-era options."
Unless you don't want to be breathing in coal pollutants or serving them up in your water that is.
15
@BobMeinetz
"Nuclear power paves the only viable path forward on climate change." - Climatologists James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Tom Wigley, Ken Caldeira.
The only viable path forward is human population control. Not to worry! If we don't address that single issue, Nature will see to it for us.
3
@BobMeinetz Have you seen the most recent updates from the Fukushima disaster ? Japan is running out of room to contain the ever-increasing volume of radioactive water, and one seriously considered proposal is to 'slowly' leak it into the Pacific.
Meanwhile the Chernobyl sarcophagus is about to collapse, forcing the authorities to build yet another one that they hope will last another century.
9
The Supreme Court previously upheld the EPA's authority to regulate pollutants, including carbon dioxide, under the Clean Air Act. But never mind. Willful environmental destruction on a global scale is good for a few narrow economic interests, so the EPA is happy to allow that destruction. And there is a good chance that today's right-wing Supreme Court majority will find some high-minded, convoluted legal argument to justify this. The economics of coal are still not favorable, and more coal-fired plants are being shut down -- generally a good thing. But leaving this up to the states and few utilities that see the writing on the wall for fossil fuels is not solving the underlying problem. The only real way to correct this is at the ballot box.
57
An EPA led and staffed by fewere scientists are happy to let it happen. Not so before Trump, when science and general concers about environmental welfare was what drove the EPA.
5
(Intended Audience: The wives and daughters of the carbon barons & the carbon-sponsored politicians)
I truly fear for the future safety of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the owners, board members and executives of the oil, natural gas, coal and pipeline companies and their sponsored political “leaders.”
As living conditions on our planet become unbearable due to the severe, relentless impacts of Climate Change, generations of devastated citizens around the world will ask: “Who is most directly responsible for this existential catastrophe?”
When these citizens look around, they will find many of the culpable carbon barons and carbon-sponsored politicians have already passed on to whatever afterlife awaits them. But the direct descendants of the carbon barons and the carbon-sponsored politicians will still be here. And there will be no escape – not even behind their gated communities – from the wrath of billions of incensed citizens on every continent.
For the carbon barons, it all comes down to one essential choice to be made RIGHT NOW: harvest their carbon assets and sacrifice their descendants – or – strand their carbon assets and save their descendants?
For the carbon-sponsored politicians, it also comes down to one essential choice to be made RIGHT NOW: continue to dither on Climate Change legislation and sacrifice their descendants – or – pass sweeping and meaningful Climate Change mitigation legislation and save their descendants?
38
@Phillip Stephen Pino....Can't blame Russian Interference or Hillary's Emails for this catastrophic Presidency and Administration. However..we can place the blame right where it belongs.with ..Trump supporters and the all enabling...GOP, Barr and ...Fox Nation !! What's next?? Bringing back DDT ??
6
"Those groups said Mr. Obama’s plan was unduly burdensome to utilities and too costly for consumers, a position that Mr. Wheeler also embraced."
This is a classic conservative red herring. To suggest that the groups opposed to progress and clean air and water do so because they are worried about the costs to the American public and American businesses. It is just false on its' face. If they were concerned for Americans' wellbeing, they would back the Obama-era rules. Because right now, climate change is costing American farmers and agribusinesses and fisheries. Carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants such as mercury in our air and water are things we know are detrimental to Americans' health. The cost for Americans ALREADY for the damage from climate change would be difficult to measure. The groups that oppose the Obama-era rules would be hard-pressed to convince me that the destruction of our nation's health and future for our children was amongst their concerns when they opposed the rules.
145
If Congress can pass off its duty to pass laws to organizations like the EPA, then such agencies should have the dame right to pass off their responsibilities to the states.
It seems that the point of this and numerous other recent suits is that a President or his executive agencies can make rules that Congress and the states like but are not allowed to do so if they do not.
Instead of these complex issues being decided in court, a protracted process, Congress women and men should be building consensus BEFORE regulations are put into place. This requires effective leadership from the President, no influence by corporate money and power, and decision-making based on facts. Is this possible?
5
The extraordinary mendacity of this administration is only matched by their venality and corruption.
It is possible to dramatically scale back CO2 emissions and move towards a significantly less carbon-intensive economy. An article in today's San Francisco Chronicle shows that California is ahead of its already ambitious 2020 goals.
The California goals for 2030 could almost entirely be met by converting the existing vehicles on the road to electric power from renewables.
If the existing subsidies to the oil, gas and coal industries were applied instead to renewable energy, battery and electric vehicle production....
Well, just imagine.
191
@Beyond Concerned
But proceeding as planned by trump and wheeler, his 'coal-fired' E.P.A. administrator will win "us" a near monopoly in the market for 19th C. energy sources.
Should make us especially competitive with other 19th C. economies.
53
@Thomas Murray
Well, we lost the opportunity to stay competitive with China under Bush II, so I guess the only countries we can stay competitive with now are those mired in the 19th centuries.
2
If we are lucky the citizens of the states with the worst coal pollution will rise up and demand that the power plants be switched to different fuel. We have one just south of us in Bow, NH that citizens want changed. We'll see if we can get it done. Unfortunately we have a Republican governor that vetoes everything good that comes out of the legislature. Maybe we will be able to vote him out next year!
79
It is very telling that litigation is the only resort to this conundrum. One would think that clean air/water has and always will be so fundamentally necessary for human (and most other) life, that leaders opposed to great environmental policies would not last in power for a short time.
Wishful thinking.
108
@jukeboxphantom
Litigation is at best a double-edged sword. As the article notes, litigation led the Supreme Court to stay the Obama Administration's Clean Power Plan (CPP) final rule from taking effect. That stay was to remain in effect until the DC circuit court of appeals had ruled on the matter and the Supreme court had the chance to consider any further appeals of that ruling -- something which never happened because the Trump Administration withdrew the stayed CPP and replaced it with the ACE rule that several states and cities are now challenging.
Stay tuned for further delays -- if the Trump Administration's ACE rule is overturned, something new will need to be proposed and finalized, and that too will be subject to litigation.
Clear legislation, not endless litigation, is needed.
7
@William Green
Thanks for the clear explanation of the litigation on this issue. I agree. I wanted to comment without getting into the weeds, merely hoping that weeds and other flora continue to grow in America!
(BTW, J.D. in 1978)
1
Thank you New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia, Boulder, Los Angeles, New York City and Philadelphia for sticking up for Clean Air. I can't believe I'd be writing such as statement & always assumed all states & cities would care about such an essential thing as the prevention of pollution. Guess not.
408
Until we’re able to get money out of politics, there will always be politicians who care more about protecting the interests of their corporate donors than doing what’s right for their constituents.
53
@John L.
Other states are mentioned earlier in the article, including: Massachusetts, California, Colorado, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.
19
And thank you, Letitia James.
23
Moving away from dirty coal toward clean natural gas will have a huge impact on CO2 reduction. No other technology will have as meaningful an impact!
Pounds of CO2 emitted per million British thermal units (Btu) of energy for various fuels
Coal (anthracite) 228.6
Coal (bituminous) 205.7
Coal (lignite) 215.4
Coal (subbituminous) 214.3
Diesel fuel and heating oil 161.3
Gasoline (without ethanol)
157.2
Propane 139.0
Natural gas 117.0
23
@Stan Silverman
Burning natural gas still releases too much CO2.
We have cleaner technology, but will we use it?
25
@Erik Frederiksen
Investment in cleaner technology will not happen as long as our government officials are paid by the fossil fuel corporations. The Supreme Court should repeal Citizens United, but that will not happen since it's a very conservative body. What happened to this body of a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no litigant or policy? The swamp is getting bigger.
20
@Stan Silverman
Solar 0.0
Wind 0.0
7
This single issue epitomizes what this administration stands for. Denying the harm done by continued use of fossil fuels as our primary energy source jeopardizes the health of the planet and our future. The Trump Administration does not care and cites economic advantages as the reason to continue to allow coal burning power plants to operate, ignoring our obligation to care for the environment. The 29 states suing the Federal Government represent a plurality of the American population. The issue of climate change is not a controversial one for most thinking citizens.
226
@Dennis W
You captured my sentiments exactly. Amid all the lying, narcissism, race baiting and myriad of other horrors from Trump, his denial of science is one of his worst legacies. The health of the planet affects every person. Sad.
18
Several mass extinctions have been linked to natural global warming events when CO2 rose in the atmosphere.
The worst of these, the end-Permian event, was linked to coal seams ignited by magma.
It turned Earth into basically a lifeless rock for millions of years.
We are currently burning fossil fuels one million times faster than nature replenishes them and things won’t improve in any time scale of interest to humanity.
117
@Erik Frederiksen We are currently burning fossil fuels one million times faster than nature replenishes them
Problem solved by nature. Peak energy levels will cause either retrograde human evolution backwards and extinction of all species unable to adapt to less natural food sources, water, and global temps. A brave new world will evolve where only the strong survive.
3
I wonder how you'll adapt to not having food.
4
@Erik Frederiksen
And so what do you recommend?
1
Is it not the sworn duty of elected officials to protect the countries citizens? If so, as lowering emission standards will cause citizens to suffer illness, doesn’t the act of doing so make them unfit for office?
295
@Edwin Ochmanek
The suing states are free to impose CO2 reducing regulations in their states, as well as regulations to reduce conventional pollutants that are making their residents sick. [Massachusetts and other NE states have done so with their Regional Greenhous Gas Initiative.] They are also free to sue the federal government if federal regulations do not comply with federal law.
The Congress is responsible for writing federal laws and talking the president into signing them or overriding his veto with 2/3 votes in each house.
The federal government, through the EPA in this case, is entitled to interpret the Clean Air Act and make regulations to reduce CO2. Obama did not do that, Trump did. Despite the fact that Trump was successful where Obama was not, this article represents that Trump is evil because the regulations that hypothetically would have been imposed by Obama would reduce additional CO2 if the laws were different.
That is the equivalent to asserting that if Obama or Trump could unilaterally repeal the laws of thermodynamics, we would have free energy from perpetual motion machines.
2
@ebmem
Please don’t give Trump any ideas about repealing more laws such as “The Law of Thermodynamics”. There are actually three laws and he might get confused and destroy the universe.
As to the EPA law under consideration, it cannot be left to the individual states. What one state does affects other states and in fact the whole world. Carbon dioxide and its effects know no boundaries. Ohio’s coal burning plants and other sources emit pollutants that are carried by the prevailing winds to Connecticut where they pollute our air. In fact, the EPA was sued by Connecticut and won the case last year. The laws have to be country wide to be beneficial.
26
@ebmem
That is just plain silly, and destructive in its application of state rights.
9
My cousin lived in the shadow of a coal power plant. After two complicated pregnancies, resulting in the full-term stillbirth of one, and the other surviving only a few days, I started doing some research. She never should have lived near that plant. Coal power is extremely bad news. It produces some of the worst toxins on earth. And it produces thousands of tons of the stuff. If coal power plants were really held accountable for disposing of the ash and slag in a responsible manner, they would be completely out of business for lack of competitiveness in the marketplace. Raw coal is cheap. Coal power generation is not.
324
@Steve Acho so sorry to hear about your family's loss. Completely agree - down with dirty, unsustainable energy usage! Americans should be smarter than this, unfortunately our President is not!
28
@Steve Acho
I hope your cousin does not vote Republican. Or, for that matter, anyone who knows her.
21
@Steve Acho
With your point "If coal power plants were really held accountable for disposing of the ash . . . " you've hit the key point in this and so much that's wrong with deregulation. Industry is getting rich because they are not paying the true costs of their products.
It's the financial crisis in another form. Like the banks getting rich for taking risks but then the government and the little guys paying when it goes badly, so it is with coal. They burn the cheap coal and we and our children pay through reduced quality of life and shorter life expectancy.
Capitalism needs restraints because left on its own it has never adequately built in costs for externalities.
11