Barack Obama’s legacy is crumbling before his eyes.
Donald Trump is taking a wrecking ball to his predecessor’s policies.
And Donald Trump left Barack Obama seething after this climate rule was completely demolished.
Trump’s EPA axes Obama-era greenhouse gas emissions reporting rule
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin just dropped a bombshell announcement that has climate activists up in arms.
The Trump administration is reportedly eliminating an Obama-era requirement that forced industrial plants to collect and report their greenhouse gas emissions, according to multiple reports from ProPublica and The New York Times.
“The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is another example of a bureaucratic government program that does not improve air quality,” Zeldin declared on March 12. “Instead, it costs American businesses and manufacturing millions of dollars, hurting small businesses and the ability to achieve the American Dream.”
This move would affect roughly 2,300 industrial plants, including oil refineries and coal plants, out of 8,000 applicable facilities that were previously required to report their emissions under Obama’s 2010 program.
Currently, the EPA requires select industrial plants to report their annual emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, three of the most common elements labeled as greenhouse gases. But Trump’s administration is making good on its promise to slash regulations that they view as burdensome to American businesses.
Heritage Foundation expert applauds the decision
Jack Spencer, a senior research fellow for energy and environmental policy at the Heritage Foundation, praised the move in comments to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Reducing this burden is a worthwhile step to take,” Spencer told the publication. “It’s the pointless overregulation of American industry that has caused a lot of the issues that we’re dealing with now.”
Spencer didn’t mince words about who should be responsible for collecting climate data.
“The government is probably the worst institution we want to be doing data collection and scientific analysis, just by virtue,” he explained, adding that “there’s a deep temptation for it to be politicized.”
“It just puts an additional burden on industry, and more importantly than that, it gives bureaucrats and politicians additional tools to wreak havoc on the economy,” Spencer continued.
Biden climate officials in complete meltdown
Former Biden administration officials are panicking over Trump’s latest move to dismantle their climate agenda.
Andrew Light, who served as Biden’s Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Affairs, complained to ProPublica that the decision would undermine America’s international climate standing.
“We will not get to the kinds of temperature stabilization needed to protect Americans against the worst climate impacts unless we get the cooperation of developing countries,” Light whined. “If the United States won’t even measure and report our own emissions, how in the world can we expect China, India, Indonesia and other major growing developing countries to do the same?”
The climate alarmists are especially concerned because this reporting program made it easier for the government to implement radical climate policies, such as the Biden administration’s plan to cut American greenhouse gas emissions by up to 66% by 2035.
That plan was announced in the waning days of the Biden administration after Trump had already won the 2024 election – a desperate last-minute attempt to cement their climate agenda.
Trump declared national energy emergency on day one
This latest move is just one piece of Trump’s broader strategy to unleash American energy production and roll back the climate regulations that have hampered economic growth.
“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more,” Zeldin declared in March.
Trump wasted no time making his intentions clear. On January 20, his first day back in office, he declared a national energy emergency, stating that “the integrity and expansion of our Nation’s energy infrastructure” is “an immediate and pressing priority for the protection of the United States’ national and economic security.”
Less than a month later, Trump established the National Energy Dominance Council to advise him on expanding “all forms of reliable and affordable energy production to drive down inflation, grow our economy, create good-paying jobs, reestablish American leadership in manufacturing, lead the world in artificial intelligence, and restore peace through strength.”
The Trump administration has already moved to eliminate dozens of climate policies implemented by both the Obama and Biden administrations as part of its America First energy agenda.
Meanwhile, Obama is watching helplessly as his climate legacy gets dismantled piece by piece. After spending years warning about the dangers of climate change, his signature environmental policies are being erased with the stroke of a pen.
