EPA asks the public about Clean Power Plan replacement

On Monday, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt issued an advance notice for public rulemaking (ANPR), soliciting public comments on what a Clean Power Plan replacement – to be known as the “Dirty Power Plan?” – should look like. Pruitt said in a statement, the “move ensures adequate and early opportunity for public comment from all stakeholders about next steps the agency might take to limit greenhouse gases from stationary sources, in a way that properly stays within the law, and the bounds of the authority provided to EPA by Congress.” But there's little doubt that the ANPR is just the another step in Trump’s effort to destroy the CPP, which has been on his vision board ever since he entered office—and part of a broader industry-friendly ethos at the Pruitt EPA. But without a replacement plan to reduce the nation’s emissions, the administration is in for a major legal battle. Former EPA chief Gina McCarthy, who helped shepherd the plan, wrote of Trump’s slow rolling CPP repeal and the all-but-stalled federal climate action: “They're using stall tactics to defer action, ignoring the courts and the demands of the American people.”