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Federal appeals court rejected rule that made one of Trump administration’s biggest climate setbacks
WASHINGTON – In a last-minute slap on President Donald Trump, a federal appeals court overturned one of his administration’s biggest climate setbacks on Tuesday, saying officials acted illegally by issuing a new rule that relaxed the federal regulation of air pollution from power plants. .
The Trump administration’s rule was based on a “misreading of the Clean Air Act,” the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled, adding that the Environmental Protection Agency “had fundamentally misinterpreted the law.” The move is likely to give the incoming Biden administration a freer hand to regulate emissions from power plants, one of the main sources of climate-damaging fossil fuel emissions.
EPA spokeswoman Molly Block called the agency’s handling of the rule change “well supported.” The court’s ruling “risks injecting more uncertainty at a time when the nation needs regulatory stability,” she said.
Environmental groups celebrated the decision of a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal.
“Today’s ruling is the perfect inauguration day gift for America,” said Ben Levitan, attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the groups that challenged the Trump rule in court. .
The ruling “confirms that the Trump administration’s dubious attempt to get rid of common sense limits on climate pollution from power plants was illegal,” Levitan said. “We can now turn to the critically important work of protecting Americans from climate change and creating new clean energy jobs.”
A coalition of environmental groups, some state governments and others had challenged the Trump administration’s so-called affordable clean energy rule, or ACE, for the electricity sector. The rule, which was made final in 2019, replaced the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s flagship program to fight climate change.
The court ruling came on the last full day in power of the Trump administration. Under Trump, the EPA rolled back dozens of public health and environmental protections as the administration sought to reduce regulation as a whole, calling it largely unnecessary and onerous for companies.
Trump, who campaigned in 2016 to pledge to bring the struggling coal industry back, has repealed the Obama administration’s plan to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants that power the nation’s electricity grid. The Clean Power Plan, one of President Barack Obama’s legacy efforts to slow climate change, was blocked in court before it was repealed in 2017.
The Trump administration replaced the Affordable Clean Energy Plan, which left most of the decisions about regulating power plant emissions to states. Opponents said the rule placed no significant limits on carbon pollution and would have increased pollution by nearly 20% of the country’s coal-fired power plants.
However, market forces have continued the decline of the US coal industry for years, despite these and other measures taken by Trump on behalf of the industry.
Andrea McGimsey, senior director of Environment America’s “Solutions Against Global Warming” campaign, said Trump’s “Dirty Power Plan” was “clearly disastrous and ill-conceived regulation from the start. As the Trump administration steps down, we hope this decision will reflect a much better future ” for renewables such as solar and wind power.
Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate energy panel, denounced “militant judges” in the appeals court who “appear determined to clear the bridges for the new Biden administration to issue news punitive climate regulations ” which he says will shut down power plants and increase energy costs.
But Representative Kathy Castor, D-Fla., Chair of the House Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, called the move a timely rejection of Trump’s efforts to roll back the Obama-era clean energy plan.
“It looks like we are entering a new era of advancement in clean energy a day earlier,” Castor said. “It is almost poetic to see our courts abandon this short-sighted and harmful policy on Trump’s last full day in office. ”
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Knickmeyer reported from Oklahoma City.
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