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PA Senator rejects Trump’s climate change executive order, PA GOP calls it a ‘huge win’

In response to President Donald Trump’s executive order that could spell the end of Obama-era environmental policy, Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey said he be...
Pennsylvania’s Rust Belt Region Could Be Pivotal In November’s Presidential Election

In response to President Donald Trump’s executive order that could spell the end of Obama-era environmental policy, Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey said he believes Pennsylvanians have a right to clean air.

Less than a week after the failed attempt to repeal Obamacare, Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed to curb the enforcement of a number of climate regulations, in an effort, the Trump administration says, to prioritize American jobs above addressing climate change.

“The people of Pennsylvania have a right to clean air and clean water and this executive order will undermine that fundamental right and do nothing to improve the economy in coal mining communities,” the Democratic Senator said in a statement. “The Clean Power Plan is vital to tackling climate change, getting control of our energy future and creating clean energy jobs. This executive order endangers all of these priorities.”

What effects will it have?
According to Mark Lynas, a British author, journalist and environmental activist who focuses on climate change, the order “is intended to make coal competitive again in the US economy, by refossilizing the US power sector and demonstrably increasing carbon emissions.”

“This is politically symbolic, as it will show that the Obama legacy on climate can be deleted,” he added.

The order will, among other things, rescind the moratorium on coal mining on US federal lands and initiate a review of the Clean Power Plant initiative: “Without it, the country will be lacking a very important signal in decarbonizing a sector which emits a lot,” said Ajay Gambhir, a Policy Research Fellow at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London.

It will also weaken a number of environmental protection policies that are not strictly related to climate change, but to such things as protecting the waterways: “By removing economy-harming regulations, the door will be left open for health-harming regulations,” said Gambhir.

Casey said Trump has already failed coal mining communities. He said, “The pensions of over 89,000 minors across the nation and 12,591 in Pennsylvania are in danger, on March 1, approximately 22,800 of our nation’s retired coal miners began receiving notices the health care they worked all their lives to secure, will be terminated.”

“It’s time for President Trump to urge Republicans in Washington to pass the Miners Protection Act,” Casey said. “President Trump should stand up to far right congressional Republicans and restore the cuts to the Appalachian Regional Commission which invests in coal mining communities and is decimated under his budget. These communities deserve a fair shot and it’s time President Trump kept his promises instead of issuing executive orders that don’t create jobs and put the health of Pennsylvanians at risk.”

What does it mean for the world?
While the order focuses on domestic policies, it will likely signal a shift in the US’s global approach to climate change.

“The rest of the world will be asked to cover for the US falling behind,” said Lynas.

“It’s extremely concerning and I can only hope that the people’s response to Trump’s order will be sufficient to reverse it.”

But some experts retain an optimistic view, arguing that the momentum towards renewable energy is unstoppable: “The damage this administration can do might be less then most people think: of course it will slow things down, and that’s the last thing we need, but business leaders are smart enough to understand that they must invest in renewable energy,” said Karsten Haustein, a climate systems and policy researcher at the University of Oxford.

“It might send a bad signal to some countries which may loosen their efforts seeing that the US isn’t decarbonizing, but I expect most to carry on with the plans they have been developing for some time — as innovation and cost reduction continue they will find it easier and less costly to reduce their emissions,” said Gambhir.

The effects may therefore be more ideological than practical: “The most harmful way this administration can act is by undermining people’s trust in science and scientific evidence, by putting climate change deniers in positions of power. As a scientist I’m worried about what that means for my colleagues in the US,” said Haustein.

Who will lead the charge now?
If the US will be perceived to step down from its role in combating climate change, will this create a leadership vacuum?

According to Lynas, the big question is what attitude China will adopt.

“As the world’s largest emitter, if China continues to fulfill the deal that was made with Obama all is not lost, but if it seizes the opportunity to abandon the Paris agreement, then we really face an extreme and terrifying future.”

Europe is unlikely to step into the driving seat, says Haustein: “Unfortunately Europe is muddled up with other political issue like Brexit, and the UK is unlikely to do anything about this in the next two years.This move will destabilize the political world to some degree. Perhaps Canada?”

But we might not have lost a leader after all, according to Gambhir: “In the run up to the Copenhagen talks in 2009 there was a degree of leadership from the EU, with China and the US falling behind. These two gave strong signals in the run up to Paris in 2015, but there was no sign of the US being an unequivocally global leader,” he said.

“There’s no need for one specific region to lead, but a requirement that many regions act multilaterally.”

Pennsylvania Reaction
Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Val DiGiorgio said he thought Trump’s executive order that directs the Environmental Protection Agency to suspend, revise, or rescind four actions related to the Obama-era Clean Power Plan as a huge win.

“President Trump’s executive order is a huge win for Pennsylvania’s energy industry – especially for our coal miners,” DiGiorgio said. “His rollback of the Obama Administration’s job-killing regulations will save 18,000 Pennsylvania jobs and keep energy prices from rising 25%. Despite these disastrous consequences Senator Casey supported this Obama Administration plan — another example of his hard turn to the left at the expense of Pennsylvania families.”

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