CLIMATE CHANGE/OBAMA EXEC ORDERS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump will direct the federal government on Tuesday to begin dismantling his predecessor’s most significant climate change policies, with a sweeping directive telling agencies to stop trying to reduce the carbon pollution of electric utilities, oil and gas drillers and coal miners.
The executive order Trump will sign represents his biggest blow yet to former President Barack Obama’s climate legacy. But it does not go as far as some conservatives would like to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, nor will it begin to separate the U.S. from a landmark international climate accord — two areas of intense disagreement within the administration.
Democrats argue that Trump is ignoring the risks of climate change for the sake of rewarding supporters in the fossil fuel industry.
‘My hope is that we’re at peak climate science denial in the Republican Party,’ Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told POLITICO on Monday. ‘They’re going to extraordinary lengths to deny this meteor that is global warming is catapulting toward the Earth. I’m scared stiff. My kids won’t be able to solve this problem if we don’t tackle it right now, because it will be too late in 20 years.’ “
-Alex Guillen, “Trump takes biggest swing yet at Obama climate legacy,” Politico, March 28, 2017