This article discusses Trump’s Dirty Power Plan – it is much worse for kids’ health than for climate change. Some of the reporting of the climate impacts of the Dirty Power Plan has been inaccurate.
Last October, then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that the agency would repeal the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. But because the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant and the Obama EPA correctly concluded that it poses a threat to public welfare via climate change, the EPA is legally obligated to do something to address that threat. That meant they needed a replacement plan.
Last week, the Trump EPA unveiled that plan and inaccurately named it the ‘Affordable Clean Energy Rule.’ The rule basically just extends the life of some dirty coal power plants and encourages them to run a bit more efficiently. The rule’s costs in worsening public health far exceed its monetary benefits. It would more accurately be named the ‘Expensive Dirty Power Plan.’
But there’s a silver lining – coal plants are already shutting down so quickly because they can’t compete with cheaper, cleaner alternatives that it turns out we don’t even need the Clean Power Plan to meet Obama’s targets.