EPA/SCOTT PRUITT: “When Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, signed a blueprint Tuesday [10-10-17] to eliminate a major Obama-era climate change regulation, the text said the agency would at some point consider a new rule to ratchet down greenhouse gas emissions.
But those adept at reading between the lines of dense federal documents say the subtext reads more like: ‘Don’t hold your breath.’
Industry leaders and environmental activists predict that when the Trump administration formalizes its plan to repeal the Clean Power Plan, nothing will take its place for possibly years to come. The E.P.A. said it would seek public comment on how to fashion a more modest measure to address pollution from power plants, although the agency has not said when it would do so…
Mr. Pruitt previewed his plan on Monday at a coal equipment supply company in Hazard, Ky., where he declared, ‘The war on coal is over.’ There and in the repeal proposal, Mr. Pruitt accused the Obama administration of favoring renewable energy over coal and violating the Clean Air Act when it established state-by-state targets for carbon emission reductions.”
-Lisa Friedman, “E.P.A. Says It Will Write a New Carbon Rule, but No One Can Say When,” The New York Times online, Oct. 10, 2017