Climate Changed
Trump's Power-Plant Proposal May Increase U.S. Carbon Pollution
- EPA set to propose replacement for Obama-era Clean Power Plan
- Measure would impose modest efficiency requirements on plants
A plume of steam rises from a cooling tower of a coal-fired power plant in West Virginia.
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
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Donald Trump is poised to replace former President Barack Obama’s plan to slash power plant greenhouse gas emissions with a substitute that could actually increase them.
The move, combined with a rollback of automobile efficiency mandates proposed earlier this month, represents a significant retreat from the fight against climate change by a president who’s already vowed to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement. Transportation and electric generation are the biggest sources of heat-trapping gas emissions in the U.S., accounting for 56 percent of the total in 2016, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.