The Donald Trump-branded White House officially takes the side of coal and against clean air. On Monday, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that today he will sign a bill that aims to cancel the anti-emissions plan put in place by Barack Obama. The provision in question is the "Clean Power Plan", launched in 2015 by the former Democratic president to cut emissions from coal-fired plants and thus fight global warming.
“This is President Trump's message: the war on coal is over,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said. I will make an effort to repeal that provision".
The withdrawal of the Plan was one of the strong points of Trump's electoral campaign, which aims to revive the fossil fuel industry in the US. According to Pruitt, the measure would be the result of an excess of "illegal" power on the part of the former president, because "regulatory power should never be used to define winners and losers".
The New York Times points out that failure to comply with emissions limits would allow the US to save about 33 billion dollars a year.
The Obama administration's goal was a 32 percent reduction in pollution from coal-fired power plants by 2030. This type of plant is responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions, which according to experts are the number one cause of ongoing climate change.
