It's not because that would take someone with the balls to call attention to it on a world stage.
If we only knew someone like that. Too bad it was all rhetoric huh? Oh wait...
CLIMATE |The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List
Air pollution and emissions
Completed
1. Weakened Obama-era fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for passenger cars and light trucks.
E.P.A. and Transportation Department |
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2. Revoked California’s ability to set stricter tailpipe emissions standards than the federal government.
E.P.A. |
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3. Withdrew the legal justification for an Obama-era rule that limited mercury emissions from coal power plants.
E.P.A. |
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4. Formally withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement, an international plan to avert catastrophic climate change adopted by nearly 200 counties.
Executive Order |
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5. Changed the way cost-benefit analyses are conducted under the Clean Air Act, potentially making it harder to issue new public health and climate protections.
E.P.A. |
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6. Canceled a requirement for oil and gas companies to report methane emissions.
E.P.A. |
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7. Revised and partially repealed an Obama-era rule limiting methane emissions on public lands, including intentional venting and flaring from drilling operations. A federal court struck down the revision in July 2020, calling the Trump administration’s reasoning “wholly inadequate” and mandating enforcement of the original rule. However, the Obama-era rule was later partially struck down in a separate court case, during which the Trump administration declined to defend it.
Interior Department |
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8. Eliminated Obama-era methane emissions standards for oil and gas facilities and narrowed standards limiting the release of other polluting chemicals known as “volatile organic compounds” to only certain facilities.
E.P.A. |
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9. Withdrew a Clinton-era rule designed to limit toxic emissions from major industrial polluters, and later proposed codifying the looser standards.
E.P.A. |
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10. Revised a program designed to safeguard communities from increases in pollution from new power plants to make it easier for facilities to avoid emissions regulations.
E.P.A. |
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11. Amended rules that govern how refineries monitor pollution in surrounding communities.
E.P.A. |
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12. Overturned Obama-era guidance meant to reduce emissions during power plant start-ups, shutdowns and malfunctions. As part of the process, the E.P.A. also reversed a requirement that Texas follow emissions rules during certain malfunction events.
E.P.A. |
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13. Weakened an Obama-era rule meant to reduce air pollution in national parks and wilderness areas.
E.P.A. |
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14. Weakened oversight of some state plans for reducing air pollution in national parks.
E.P.A. |
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15. Established a minimum pollution threshold at which the E.P.A. can regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources: 3 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. (Power plants meet this threshold, but oil and gas production facilities fall just below it.)
E.P.A. |
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16. Relaxed air pollution regulations for a handful of plants that burn waste coal for electricity.
E.P.A. |
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17. Repealed rules meant to reduce leaking and venting of powerful greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons from large refrigeration and air conditioning systems.
E.P.A. |
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18. Directed agencies to stop using an Obama-era calculation of the social cost of carbon, which rulemakers used to estimate the long-term economic benefits of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Executive Order |
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19. Released new guidance that allows upwind states to contribute more ozone pollution to downwind states than during the Obama-era. (The E.P.A. under Mr. Trump also rejected petitions from a handful of states over failure to address upwind states’ pollution.)
E.P.A. |
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20. Withdrew guidance directing federal agencies to include greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews. But several district courts have ruled that emissions must be included in such reviews.
Executive Order; Council on Environmental Quality |
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21. Revoked an Obama executive order that set a goal of cutting the federal government’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent over 10 years.
Executive Order |
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22. Repealed a requirement that state and regional authorities track tailpipe emissions from vehicles on federal highways.
Transportation Department |
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23. Lifted a summertime ban on the use of E15, a gasoline blend made of 15 percent ethanol. (Burning gasoline with a higher concentration of ethanol in hot conditions increases smog.)
E.P.A. |
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24. Changed rules to allow states and the E.P.A. to take longer to develop and approve plans aimed at cutting methane emissions from existing landfills.
E.P.A. |
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25. Withdrew a proposed rule aimed at reducing pollutants, including air pollution, at sewage treatment plants.
E.P.A. |
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26. Threw out most of a proposed policy that would have tightened pollution standards for offshore oil and gas operations and required them to use improved pollution controls.
Interior |
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27. Amended Obama-era emissions standards for clay ceramics manufacturers.
E.P.A. |
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28. Relaxed some Obama-era requirements for companies to monitor and repair leaks at oil and gas facilities, including exempting certain low-production wells –
a significant source of methane emissions – from the requirements altogether. (Other leak regulations were eliminated.)
E.P.A. |
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In progress
29. Proposed revisions to standards for carbon dioxide emissions from new, modified and reconstructed coal power plants, eliminating Obama-era restrictions that, in effect, required them to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions.
E.P.A. |
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30. Proposed a rule limiting the ability of individuals and communities to challenge E.P.A.-issued pollution permits before a panel of agency judges.
E.P.A. |
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