An Obama era program that would have shut down the Indiana coal industry and hiked Hoosier electric rates was formally thrown on the scrap heap on Tuesday. President Trump, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Scott Pruitt, and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced an Executive Order that will put the U.S. on track to full and dominant American energy independence. The Executive Order calls on the Secretary of the Interior to review the Bureau of Land Management’s 2016 moratorium on new coal leases on federal land and also review three final rules from the Department regarding oil and gas production on both federal and private land and the outer continental shelf. “We can’t power the country on pixie dust and hope. Today, President Trump took bold and decisive action to end the War on Coal and put us on track for American energy independence,” said Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke.
Critics of the Obama program rejoiced at the reversal of a key element of the U.S. Climate Change policy. “Despite costing up to $39 billion and resulting in 68,000 people losing their jobs in the manufacturing sector each year, EPA’s own analysis showed the CPP would reduce potential future global warming only by 0.019 degrees C by 2100 – an amount too small to be accurately measured by even the most sophisticated scientific equipment,” said Isaac Orr, Research Fellow, Energy and Environment Policy-The Heartland Institute.
Farmers Union President Roger Johnson says the order “sends a very clear message to Americans and the rest of the world that our country will not lead the global effort to curtail climate change.” Trump’s executive order rescinds more than half a dozen federal regulations and guidance that aid in making the U.S. food system more climate resilient, according to NFU.