Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson of the Washington Post report (paywall) that President Trump may sign new executive orders this week that will roll back Obama-era policies on climate and water pollution.
Looks like James Baker III and George Shultz struck out with their conservative answer to climate change pitch to Vice President Mike Pence, director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, senior advisor Jared Kushner, and Kushner's wife and Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump. That puts Baker and Shultz in good company—former Vice President Al Gore also struck out in his meeting about climate change with Ivanka and Donald Trump back in December.One executive order... will instruct the Environmental Protection Agency to begin rewriting the 2015 regulation that limits greenhouse-gas emissions from existing electric utilities. It also instructs the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing.
Too bad, as it would have set the US on the path to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, its dependency on foreign oil, and costly regulatory compliance measures, all in an economically efficient manner. Oh, and it would not lowered taxes on the poorest 70% of Americans, important in these times of populist frustration.
As California has shown, reducing greenhouse emissions is not incompatible with economic growth:
Source: California Air Resources Board