It was probably clear, once President Donald Trump's administration purged all climate change information from the Environmental Protection Agency's website, that President Barack Obama's global warming policies were in trouble.
Trump plans on issuing an executive order on Tuesday that would sweep away as much of Obama's environmental policies as possible, in particular those that address man-made climate change, according to The Washington Post. This will include lifting a moratorium on federal coal leasing and ending a requirement that federal officials consider the potential impact on climate change when making policy decisions. Notably, the executive order does not address whether the United States should continue to participate in the Paris climate change agreement of 2015.
A senior White House official briefed reporters on Monday evening, telling them that "this policy is in keeping with President Trump’s desire to make the United States energy independent. When it comes to climate change, we want to take our course and do it in our own form and fashion."
During a press call on Monday, a senior White House official said that "there are a number of policies from the Obama administration that the president believes should be reviewed. Some of them should be taken off the books immediately, to the extent that we can," according to ThinkProgress.
In addition to ending the coal moratorium and climate change impact directives, Trump's order will also repeal rules regulating fracking on public lands, require agencies to reconsider the social cost of carbon, eliminate a federal flood risk management standard, and end an action that promoted energy efficiency in federal buildings.
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