Trump’s first year reshaped U.S. energy and climate policy, New York Times analysis finds

In his first year back in the White House, President Trump rapidly reshaped the nation’s climate and energy landscape, dismantling a range of federal regulations, altering disaster response and pushing policies to boost fossil fuel and nuclear production while curtailing wind and solar, The New York Times reported.

A New York Times analysis found the Environmental Protection Agency moved to delay, ease or eliminate more than a dozen rules governing air pollution, water contamination and greenhouse gas emissions, based in part on research from Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School and other sources.

The analysis counted four proposed rollbacks of air pollution rules, five rollbacks affecting water quality and five changes that would remove limits on greenhouse gas emissions, including a July move to revoke the 2009 “endangerment finding” that underpins federal authority to regulate such gases.

The administration offered more than one billion acres of federal lands and waters for oil and gas drilling, revoked regulations that would have made building natural gas plants harder, intervened to slow coal-plant retirements, and ordered faster approvals for nuclear reactors. It has also repealed subsidies for solar, wind and electric vehicles, slowed approvals for new renewable projects and, the Times said, helped prompt companies to cancel more than $32 billion in planned clean energy investments.

Key Topics

Politics, Donald Trump, Environmental Protection Agency, Endangerment Finding, Renewable Energy, Paris Agreement