Trump Climate Rollbacks Face Legal Scrutiny (Audio)

over possible changes. The eventual impact of the order, meanwhile, is not yet clear. Here with us to talk about the President's executive order are Charles Warren, a partner at Kramer Levin Neftalis and Frankel, and Patrick Parentea, professor at the Vermont Law School pat The executive order the President's signed is entitled Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. What will this order do to promote American energy independence? Do much?

The order can be broken down in three parts. One the immediate effect, which is to repeal many of the Obama administration policies and guidance with regard to reducing carbon pollution that's causing climate change, and also preparing for the already evident impacts of climate change, So those those things that were not formal rules were wiped off the books

with a stroke of a pen. The other thing, of course, is that he directed all of the agencies of government to look at their their rules, policies, procedures and and see which ones are standing in the way of production of domestic energy, with an emphasis of course on oil, gas, coal, and nuclear and only slight mention of renewables and other resources.

So those are the immediate things. The lifting of the coal moratorium on public lands that was put in place because studies have shown that coal federal coal is being sold at below market value and in the United States is actually losing money on coal leasing. Um that that's been lifted. So that's an immediate thing. And then there's a whole in a much more important second category of rules that are already in the books, like the Clean Power Plan, like the methane rules for new oil and

gas facilities and so forth. UM. I'll let Charles talking about some of this as well. And for those the rule does the order does nothing, those will have to go through notice and comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act. They'll then be challenged in court, And as many commentators have said already, and I'll just repeat, it'll be years before we know whether any of these proposed rollbacks of rules that are already on the books will actually be

upheld by the courts. Chuck, what do you consider to be the most hurtful to the environment of all these possibilities. Well, I think if you look at the the rules, obviously the Clean Power Plan, if it were to be overturned, that could extremely hurtful, and then the methane rule and

the flaring of methane. And also you know now they're they're looking at One of the things that they can do right away is the Obama administration had basically said you have to consider the effects of climate change in all kinds of decisions. Now that's going to be reversed. But I think one of I think that, as Pat said, a lot of this stuff you don't really know if

it's going to happen. One of the things, though, that you don't know, is that the effects of these actions, if you look at them on an international in an international sense, could really uh sort of slow the momentum from the Paris Climate Accords and give countries like India and I think less with China because I think they're

really moving forward for other reasons. It's abod a place like India, which is really becoming one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, could really take advantage and say, well, the United States looks like they're not really too interested in pursuing these climate change goals, and so I think, uh, you know, we're an emerging economy and we're growing and we're gonna I think we may have to put some

of that on the back burner. So that, to my mind, is one of the fallouts that could really end up hurting the climate change effort more than some of these other things, because I think for a variety of reason Pat touched on some of them, and I'll just add another one. I think the economics of coal just are pointing to the fact that it's not going to be

it's not going to come back. And to the extent that you could talk about some possible new coal jobs, I mean a lot of any new coal exploration will likely be done with machines more than men. So think that I think that's not going to have much of an impact, But I have a concern about what it means for the global effort. If you just take the United States out of the kind of leadership role that

we had under the previous administration. Environmental groups and a coalition of mostly Democratic states and cities have called President Trump's Executive Order on Energy dangerous and illegal. The order directs federal agencies to begin reconsidering and rolling back policies implemented by the Obama administration to combat climate change and

fulfill American commitments under the Paris Climate Accords. We're talking about the President's executive Order with Chuck Warren, a partner at Cramer Levin, and Pat Parente, professor at Vermont Law School. Pat We've been talking about how it's going to take a bunch of agency action here UH to implement a lot of the things the President says he wants to do to roll back these regulations, and this coalition says it's gonna sue UH over whatever it is that they do.

How much freedom of action do these federal agencies actually have to roll back the rules that the Obama administration implemented. Well, they've got to go through the same process they went through to build up the rules, to to adopt the rules, to repeal them. UM. And that's all governed by the Administrative Procedure Act. It requires public notice and comment and some instances that may require public hearings or meetings UM, and a chance for people to weigh in and the

response to their comments. It requires a factual basis, a scientific basis, a legal basis. UM. So you know, you can't snap your fingers and say, I don't like this rule, I'm going to repeal it. UM. You've got to go through a lengthy administrative process first, and then, as I said earlier, that inevitably will be followed by litigation challenging whatever the new rules that the Trump administration adopts UH, that will have to go through addicial review process the

same way the Obama rules did. And that's why I and others have said it will be years, frankly before we get a final resolution, and that will probably have to come from the United States Supreme Court. And who knows who will be sitting there when and if these rules finally make their way there, Chuck. The Clean Power Plan was the cornerstone of President Obama's effort to combat climate change. It is in court, and the Trump administration is asking a federal appeals Court to put its review

of the CPP on hold. What will happen in that case, Well, actually, I I don't know if they're going to put it on hold, because effectively a couple of things can happen. If they make a decision and uphold it, it's still have to go to the Supreme Court because there's still is that you know, a state that's in place and

so um it if they make it. If they make a decision against it and say that you know, and they want to send it back d p A, then obviously E p A it will go back to the PA and that will be a big defeat for the environmental side. But I don't think it. I don't think it makes much sense for the court to really put it on hold now because even if they decided to uphold it, it still has to go to the Supreme Court, and it's still going to take a while before it's

uh decided. And I think one thing to point out in this though, is that more than this rule, it's the economics that have been driving things, and the use of coal is weighed down because the price of natural gas is low. We have an abundant source of natural gas that's going to continue, and a lot of utilities have moved away from coal. I mean, the only thing you get out of this is you'd run a few more old cold plants longer. I don't know that that

would lead to any increase in jobs. It's probably not, and it wouldn't really do anything visa the Independent. In fact, we're pretty independent now and every all the forecast looks like we're going to become even more independent. So I think it's in one sense, the Clean Power Plan is very important, but I think that the facts and the economics are inexorably leading to where the Clean Power Plan

wants to go. Anyway, Well, speaking of the economics path, you know, the the order, as we've been discussing, kind of emphasizes coal and oil a lot in what the President is trying to promote. What is the impact likely to be of this order on their renewable energy industry, which has been growing so much. I agree wholeheartedly with Chuck's comments. You know, Trump can try to repeal administrative rules, but he can't repeal the market, and he can't repeal science,

and both things are moving inexorably forward. And on the science side, of course, it's it's all bad news. You know, the effects of climate change are bad and getting worse all the time. They're irreversible. The science is unmistakable, and there's nothing he can say or do that will change

any of that. And on the economic side, UH, you know it just to cite one factor here that you'll be you'll recognize, Moody's Investor Services has just proposed projected fifty six gigawatts of Midwest coal fire generation UH is at serious risk of closure UM in the next few years. So UM, the market is moving very strongly towards renewables. They're still still big obstacles UH to full deployment of

renewable storage being the biggest one. But you know, there's lots of work being done to overcome those obstacles, and there's very, very every reason to believe that they will be overcome. The grid is is modernizing and getting smarter all the time, it's integrated all ready. We're seeing that solar um is out producing every other fuel for electricity in terms of job creation five to one. In fact, solar is the fastest growing sector of the employment market

right now. So those are just a few of many indicators that the Trump order is cutting against where the market is going and certainly against what the science says we need to do, uh to provide a safe sustainable future and Americans, but for everybody on Earth. And on that note, Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecast that wind and solar energy will grow over the next three years even

without the Clean Power Plan. So, Chuck, do you see some of these states that are taking on climate change benefiting from the market on renewable energy and maybe at the end of a few years they'll have the market cornered. Well, I tune. I think that a good point in the sense that California has been sprinting ahead on renewables. And I just saw something where there's like over two hundred thousand jobs just in California, uh, for in the renewable

energy sector. And I do think that the states that move ahead in this area are going to be catching the wave here of employment. And to put that in perspective, the coal industree now employs something like sixty seven thousand jobs. It's obviously way down from what it was thirty years ago. And if you just look at the state of California

and renewables, you're over two hundred thousand jobs. So you're looking at what if you really want to do something about jobs, you put the focus on renewable energy as Pat. I mean, I agree with what Pat was saying completely. Chuck, Chuck, thank you. That's that's uh, that's Chuck Warren, a partner at Kramer, Levin and tell Us and Frankel, and Pat Parento, a professor at Vermont Law School. Thanks very much for

being here. On Bloomberg Letter discussed the President's Executive Order on Energy and Economic Growth.