Here are Biden’s climate policies that Trump would scrap. Report Nyt
Donald Trump has promised to boost oil extraction and thinks electric vehicles will cause massive job losses in the United States. The New York Times in-depth analysis
Former President Donald J. Trump vowed to “cancel” President Biden's policies to reduce pollution from fossil fuel power plants, “terminate” efforts to encourage electric vehicles and “develop liquid gold that is right under our feet” promoting oil and gas.
These changes and others promised by Trump, should he win the presidency again, represent a 180-degree shift from Biden's climate agenda.
When he was president, Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protection measures put in place by the Obama administration. Biden has in turn reversed much of Trump's agenda. But climate advocates argue that a second Trump term would be far more damaging than his first, because the window to keep rising global temperatures at relatively safe levels is rapidly closing.
“It would become an all-out assault on any possible progress on climate change,” said Pete Maysmith, senior vice president of campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental group.
Other Republicans don't necessarily disagree. Michael McKenna, who worked in Trump's White House and is supporting Trump's bid for a second term, said the approach to climate change would likely be one of "indifference."
“I seriously doubt we will spend any time on this issue,” McKenna said. By contrast, he said, the Biden administration's climate regulations would be "in trouble."
Trump's first term was marked by some negligence in legal work, leading to some of his attempts to overturn Obama-era climate policies being rejected by the courts. Neil Chatterjee, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under Trump, said the former president's team had learned from past mistakes.
“It will be a much more organized and coherent legal and regulatory strategy if there is a Trump 2.0,” Chatterjee said, adding: “These guys know what they're doing now.”
Here are five of the most significant reversals that a Trump administration could bring about on the climate – writes the NYT .
1. Coal and gas-fired power plants
Fossil fuel plants that keep the lights on or power the heating and air conditioning are responsible for a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the United States. Reducing them is key to Biden's plan to tackle climate change.
Environmental Protection Agency regulations approved Thursday will force coal plants to use technology to capture virtually all of their emissions or close. New gas plants built in the United States will also have to meet rigorous emissions standards.
According to Biden administration estimates, regulations regulating coal plants would reduce 1.38 billion tons of carbon dioxide between now and 2047, which is equivalent to preventing the annual emissions of 328 million gasoline-powered cars.
Trump used a mixture of truth and falsehood in describing this policy. He said he will force coal plants to close, which is probably correct. He also said he will force gas plants to close, which is not true. And he said renewable energy can't keep the lights on, which is also false.
If elected, Trump has said he will roll back regulation of coal-fired electricity and “give the green light to building hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of beautiful, brand new power plants that actually work.”
2. Automobile emission standards
Trump has spoken particularly aggressively about electric vehicles.
Transportation is responsible for another quarter of U.S. greenhouse gases, with cars and trucks accounting for the majority. Biden has imposed limits on pollution from car tailpipes, rules designed to ensure that most new cars and light trucks sold in the United States are fully electric or hybrid by 2032.
Trump declared that these regulations will lead to a "bloodbath" in the US economy, "kill" the auto industry and cause a "murder" of jobs. He pledged to reverse them.
“That will be the first order of business: unwind this,” McKenna said if Trump is elected. “I think everyone has been quite clear on this point.”
3. The Inflation Reduction Act
The Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law in 2022, is the nation's largest investment in fighting climate change.
It contains more than $370 billion in tax credits over 10 years to help move the United States toward cleaner forms of energy by offering incentives to companies to produce electric vehicles and batteries and to consumers to purchase them vehicles, switching to solar energy and purchasing items such as electric heat pumps to heat and cool their homes.
Trump, who has called the IRA "the largest tax increase in history," is expected to seek to eliminate much of the law.
Incentives to buy electric vehicles, which Trump called "one of the dumbest decisions" he's ever heard, would certainly be in the dock, Republicans said. As well as measures to support companies that install charging stations for electric vehicles.
Tax credits for solar and wind energy could be in his administration's sights, as are incentives for consumers who buy heat pumps or make their homes more energy efficient.
However, even Republican opponents of the climate bill acknowledge that reversing these tax incentives will be difficult, in large part because many of the battery manufacturing plants and new electric vehicles are being built in Republican districts.
“Unfortunately wind, solar and electric vehicle producers all have their connections in red states, so getting that money back is harder,” said Steven J. Milloy, a climate change denier who worked on the transition team than Trump in 2020. However, according to Milloy, a Trump administration could do a lot to slow the transition to clean energy, even if the tax breaks remain.
“What the IRS doesn't do is force anyone to approve wind or solar farms,” he said, adding: “I don't see them getting approved under the Trump administration. I see extremely thorough investigations into whale deaths and other environmental issues.”
There is no evidence that offshore wind farms cause whale deaths. Trump has also railed against wind farms, falsely claiming they cause cancer.
4. Oil and gas drilling
If he wins a second term, Trump has promised to “unleash domestic energy production like never before.” These are mainly coal, oil and gas, the three main fossil fuels.
While President Biden has certainly approved some large fossil fuel projects, such as the huge Willow oil development on Alaska's North Slope , and the United States is producing more oil than any other country, Biden has also sought to curb development future. His administration approved the smallest offshore oil program in history. It has protected hundreds of millions of acres of wilderness from mining and drilling. Earlier this month, Biden blocked oil and gas development within 13 million acres of wilderness in Alaska.
The United States is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, but the Biden administration has put on hold permits for new export terminals while the Energy Department studies the effects of gas exports on national security, economic and on the climate.
President Trump has promised to immediately lift the pause and give the green light to pipelines and other energy projects.
“We're going to drill, baby, we're going to drill, right now,” Trump told supporters in January.
David Hayes, a former Biden administration climate adviser, said he expects the Trump White House to revive drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the country's main wildlife sanctuary. Biden canceled seven oil leases in the refuge last year.
“They're going to look for something symbolic, so they're going to try to open up more sensitive areas on public lands,” Hayes said of a Trump White House.
5. Global climate negotiations
The annual climate summit convened by the United Nations will be held this year in Azerbaijan on November 11, just days after the US elections.
As president, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, a 2015 agreement in which all nations agreed to reduce greenhouse gases to keep global warming within relatively safe limits.
Biden brought the United States back into the global agreement on his first day in office and pledged to cut American emissions in half this decade and stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere before 2050.
Trump's likely policies would add four billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, according to a study by Carbon Brief, a climate analysis site.
Many foreign leaders believe the world superpower's four-year absence during the Trump administration was a setback. They fear another American withdrawal would delay progress at a time when time is running out to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of global warming.
Mukhtar Babayev, the incoming president of the United Nations summit in November, called on the United States to respect its climate commitments, even if Trump wins in November, but did not name him.
(Extract from the eprcomunicazione press review)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/donald-trump-politiche-emissioni-stati-uniti/ on Sat, 04 May 2024 05:55:13 +0000.