A headline that the FBI was out to increase gang violence might raise eyebrows. Or maybe one about the FDA plotting to create more food-borne illness. But sadly enough, under the current regime, “EPA seeks to derail cleanup of coal power plant pollution” is exactly what you’d expect.
The Trump administration is once again seeking to scuttle cuts to pollution from coal-fired power plants.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court in Washington to postpone consideration of 2012 rules requiring energy companies to cut emissions of toxic chemicals.
These rules concern the release of toxic chemicals. Most power plants have already implemented the changes necessary to meet the new requirements. Because who in their right mind would think any administration would come along to say “we’re going to support more toxic pollution?”
But People With A Lick of Sense are clearly not on the same page as EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.
Last week EPA administrator Scott Pruitt announced he would seek to rewrite Obama-era rules limiting water pollution from coal-fired power plants. The agency also sought to roll back tighter restrictions on pollution from coal mines.
It’s unclear how destroying rules that people are already following would create more jobs, or even generate more profits.
Trump has pledged to reverse decades of decline in a U.S. coal industry under threat from such cleaner sources of energy as natural gas, wind turbines and solar farms. The president has also said he doesn't agree with the consensus of climate scientists that carbon emissions from fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming.
And that’s the crux of it. Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt have married anti-science denialism to voodoo economics, creating an equation that says less regulation equals more jobs. They continue to apply this rule even when job loss can be attributed to plain old market conditions.
Why? Because blaming government regulations is easy. It lets Trump pretend to do something with one illegible scrawl on an executive order.
Helping the nation plot a strategy toward a clean energy future takes work. Destroying environmental laws for the sake of destruction only take ideology.