President Donald Trump’s EPA will unveil a plan in coming days that unravels an Obama-era regulation meant to wean the U.S. off of coal power plants in favor of cleaner forms of energy, according to a Tuesday Politico report.
The proposal would let states write their own lax regulations, or opt out of regulations altogether, for coal-burning power plants. The EPA has reportedly acknowledged that the new proposal would result in increased levels of greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants, undermining President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
The plan essentially will disregard regulations to let the plants burn more coal at a cost-efficient pace, thus encouraging businesses to use them instead of sources that don’t harm the environment.
Per Politico, environmental activists and Democratic states plan to fight the proposal when it is finalized. The EPA reportedly plans to argue that the Obama-era regulation would illegally regulate the power sector, and that the costs of compliance would be insurmountable.
