Latest news with #EO14154
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump administration approves more coal mining in Decker
Coal mining in southern Montana (Photo by Larry Mayer | Getty Images). Job cuts, tariffs — and in Montana, coal — may be the most visible evidence of the stark differences between the Biden administration and Donald J. Trump's second term as president. In just a matter of weeks, the Trump administration has switched directions completely and now says it will open up at least one large tract of federal land to more coal production. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement released its decision on leasing federal coal tracts near the Spring Creek Mine in Decker, relying heavily on a presidential executive order, while abandoning environmental concerns. Last year, the Biden administration had announced that it would be halting much coal leasing in eastern Montana, and had made steps toward stopping coal leasing on federal tracts of land due to concerns about climate change. However, Trump's executive order, EO 14154, which was better known as 'Unleashing American Energy,' rescinded the work of years of study and prioritizing pollution and climate impacts above energy production. That led the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to change direction, which will allow the Decker mine to access an additional 39.9 million tons of coal — work that could keep the mine operational for as many as another 16 years, according to the 24-page decision. Montana's all-Republican Congressional delegation cheered the decision in a joint press release. 'Today's decision to approve the federal mining plan modification for Spring Creek Mine illustrates this administration's unwavering commitment to unleashing American energy. After years of foot dragging from Biden's Department of the Interior, Big Horn County's mining community can finally breathe a sigh of relief. I thank Secretary (Doug) Burgum and his team for their expeditious review that will extend the life of the mine by 16 years and my fellow delegation members for their hard work to make Montana mining great again,' said Rep. Troy Downing, whose Congressional district includes Decker. However, while the decision aligns with the Trump administration's energy policies, it may not be the final word in the coal controversy. Environmental groups had previously challenged the first Trump administration's approval of the project, saying that the agency had not properly conducted an environmental impact statement which took into account the environmental impacts of more coal. Federal district court judge Susan P. Watters ultimately agreed with those groups and ordered the agency to complete the environmental evaluation, which it did. The new record of decision says that it has now incorporated those findings in its latest environmental impact statement, which includes concerns about the 'social costs of carbon' that encompass evidence of rising global temperatures, increased fire and more potent natural disasters. However, the agency also dismissed those concerns, saying that Trump's executive order and the National Environmental Policy Act which governs permit approval only requires the environmental impacts to be disclosed, but doesn't mandate action in those areas. The 'social costs of carbon' was an economic model and concept being formulated by a group of federal employees across different departments that developed models which quantified the effects of carbon and methane on the climate and in turn, on the economy. The Trump administration withdrew and rescinded all of the work, conclusions and policies of that group on the first day of his presidency via executive order. 'The calculation of the 'social cost of carbon' is marked by logical deficiencies, a poor bases in empirical science, politicization and the absence of a foundation in legislation,' the executive order said. 'Its abuse arbitrarily slows regulatory decisions and, by rendering the United States economy internationally uncompetitive, encourages a greater human impact on the environment by affording less efficient foreign energy producers a greater share of the global energy and natural resource market.' In the closing days of the Biden administration, it had recommended not approving the leases on the federal tracts of land, leaving the Spring Creek Mine to mine from other private and public tracts. The Biden administration and the final environmental impact statement agreed not allowing more mining was preferable because 'it would cause the least amount of adverse environmental effects from the production or combustion of the remaining (Spring Creek) tracts of coal.' But after Trump took office and released a new executive order, the Office of Surface Mining switched courses. 'The No Action alternative was not selected for OSMRE's recommendation decision because it does not meet the purpose and need, and it does not align with current national policy to encourage energy exploration and production on federal lands and waters,' the decision said. Federal officials also defended the decision, saying environmental justice was not the only consideration required to make a decision, something the Biden administration had said as recently as April 2023. 'To reach its decision OSMRE considered only the applicable statutory and regulatory requirements necessary for approval of the mining plan modification,' it said. The Spring Creek Mine, located in Decker, 32 miles north of Sheridan, Wyoming, is owned by the Navajo Transitional Energy Company.
Euronews
27-02-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
This key scientific finding underpins US climate action. Now Trump is being urged to ignore it
As President Trump's attack on the climate continues, the US is considering repealing an important scientific finding that underpins the country's climate action. According to the Washington Post, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin has urged the White House to strike down the 2009 'Endangerment Finding.' This finding determines that greenhouse gas emissions are a risk to public health, and gives the EPA a legal foundation for regulations to limit planet-warming pollution. Why does the EPA want to repeal this key climate finding? On day one of Trump's second presidency, he signed a slew of executive orders. This included EO 14154, also known as 'Unleashing American Energy.' Buried in the 20-page document is an instruction to the EPA Administrator which tasked him with reviewing the 'legality and continuing applicability of' the Endangerment Finding. It gave Zeldin 30 days to submit recommendations to the head of the White House budget office, Russell Vought. The executive order effectively asked the EPA and other agencies to determine whether climate change is a hoax, as Trump has claimed many times in the past. A month on, Administrator Zeldin appears to have made his decision. 'I challenged Lee Zeldin to his face on the endangerment finding,' Senator Ed Markey posted on social media. 'I knew he wouldn't stand up to Trump's fossil fuel donors. If this admin wants to say that climate-fueled hurricanes, wildfires and droughts aren't a danger to our country, the admin itself is a danger to our country.' In the wake of the planet's hottest year on record and multiple climate-related disasters in the US, there is almost certainly going to be some opposition to this move. According to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), in 2024 there were 27 individual weather and climate disasters in the US, causing at least $1 billion in damages. These disasters, it says, were responsible for at least 568 fatalities and cost the US $182.7 billion. 'Targeting the Endangerment Finding is extreme, dangerous, and puts important benefits at risk,' says Peter Zalzal, special projects director and lead attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund. 'It also goes well beyond anything the first Trump administration undertook.' What is the Endangerment Finding? In 2007, the US Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the country's Clean Air Act. It asked the EPA to make a science-based decision on whether they were a danger to public health. Two years later, the EPA issued the Endangerment Finding, which read: 'The Administrator finds that the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.' This finding has formed the bedrock of the Clean Air Act and 15 years of greenhouse gas reduction in the US. Under this act, the EPA is legally obliged to limit the emissions of any air pollutant that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. The finding is backed by a vast amount of scientific data and evidence that climate pollution harms human health. It has been reaffirmed in the US Supreme Court multiple times and provides the foundation for the EPA to protect people from climate-changing pollution. Since it was established, the scientific evidence has only become stronger. National Climate Assessments conducted in 2018 and 2023 confirmed that climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions causes extensive harm throughout the country. 'It's no surprise that this anti-science, pro-fossil fuel administration wants to go after the Endangerment Finding,' says Rachel Cleetus, policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. 'This blatant attempt to do an end-run around scientific evidence deserves to fail.' Can President Trump dismantle the Endangerment Finding? Dismantling the Endangerment Finding will be difficult but not impossible. The wealth of scientific evidence on which the finding is based would need to be discredited, and robust, compelling evidence to the contrary presented. Given the overwhelming consensus on climate change and its risks, discrediting this key ruling with science will be a near-impossible task. Beyond that, the EPA would need to go through a lengthy rulemaking process, including public comments, reviews, and legal justifications, which could take years. Rather than directly dismantling the Endangerment Finding, the Trump administration may decide to take a more indirect approach to weakening laws about air pollution. The EPA could be instructed, for example, to interpret the finding in such a way that it minimises regulatory burden. There is a precedent for this. During Trump's first term, he weakened the Endangerment Finding by instructing the EPA to roll back regulations based on it. This meant the finding was never directly repealed, but became ineffective in regulatory terms. In practice, this saw a reinterpretation of the EPA's regulatory authority, allowing the administration to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan with the Affordable Clean Energy Rule. This new rule significantly reduced federal restrictions on coal power plants. Now, with a key piece of scientific evidence at risk, it seems the White House is once again weighing how far it is willing to go to attack the foundational science that underpins climate action in the US. If the Endangerment Rule is weakened or repealed, it could open the floodgates to an array of climate-damaging activities.
