President Donald Trump will order the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin dismantling a regulation central to former President Barack Obama’s plan to fight global warming.
A source briefed on the matter told The Washington Post one of the orders “will instruct the Environmental Protection Agency to begin rewriting the 2015 regulation that limits greenhouse-gas emissions from existing electric utilities” and order “the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing.”
Trump will issue a second order instructing the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rewrite the “Waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) rule that expanded federal control over rivers, streams and wetlands — even those on private property.
Trump is expected to issue the orders in the next week. Dismantling EPA regulations could take months and is bound to draw legal challenges. Repealing the Department of the Interior’s coal moratorium, on the other hand, could take effect immediately.