On March 28, 2017, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order on “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth” (Executive Order) which commences the rollback of significant climate policies implemented by President Barack Obama. It is predicted that President Obama’s 2015 Clean Power Plan (CPP) will be first on the chopping block as the Executive Order instructs federal agencies to:
- …immediately review existing regulations that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources and appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind those that unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources.
The Executive Order
President Trump’s Executive Order mandates the heads of federal agencies to review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources, with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy resources.
The Executive Order directs the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to immediately take all steps necessary to review the CPP and other regulations that burden the development or use of domestically produced energy. In addition, it instructs the EPA to, if appropriate and as soon as practicable, publish for notice and comment a proposed rule suspending, revising, or rescinding the CPP. See id. § 4.
