Our group covered the South Coast Air Quality Management District RECLAIM program. RECLAIM is a cap and trade system that allows businesses to decide the most economic way to reduce their pollution. While this program was considered ineffective, it is still a step in the right direction. However, the Trump administration recently announced rollbacks on Obama-era EPA regulations. Under the initiative of EPA Chief Scott Pruitt, the EPA announced on October 9th that it will end the Clean Power Plan, which was President Obama’s policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. President Trump highlighted the deregulation at a press conference on Monday, saying, "I am taking historic steps to lift restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion, and to cancel job-killing regulations."
Given that California cap and trade programs follows the template set by the EPA, what does this mean for California’s standards? Will California need to set its own standards and will other states decide not to participate in order to incentivize factories or other large industries to move into their states?
Link to article: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-energy/trump-signs-order-dismantling-obama-era-climate-policies-idUSKBN16Z1L6
Group Members: Grace Reynolds, Peggy Ho, Judith Foster, Carly York, Maria Kiejnich
No comments:
Post a Comment