Speaker 1: Yesterday, surrounded by coal miners and coal executives, President Trump
Speaker 1: signed a sweeping executive order meant to reverse Obama administration
Speaker 1: policies on power plants and climate change, which were meant
Speaker 1: to fulfill the United States commitments to reduce emissions under
Speaker 1: the Paris Climate Accords. The executive order will require federal
Speaker 1: agencies to reconsider or revise numerous emissions related rules, and
Speaker 1: some states and environmentalists are already gearing up to sue
Speaker 1: over possible changes. The eventual impact of the order, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: is not yet clear. Here with us to talk about
Speaker 1: the President's executive order are Charles Warren, a partner at
Speaker 1: Kramer Levin Neftalis and Frankel, and Patrick Parentea, professor at
Speaker 1: the Vermont Law School pat The executive order the President's
Speaker 1: signed is entitled Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. What
Speaker 1: will this order do to promote American energy independence? Do much?
Speaker 1: The order can be broken down in three parts. One
Speaker 1: the immediate effect, which is to repeal many of the
Speaker 1: Obama administration policies and guidance with regard to reducing carbon
Speaker 1: pollution that's causing climate change, and also preparing for the
Speaker 1: already evident impacts of climate change, So those those things
Speaker 1: that were not formal rules were wiped off the books
Speaker 1: with a stroke of a pen. The other thing, of course,
Speaker 1: is that he directed all of the agencies of government
Speaker 1: to look at their their rules, policies, procedures and and
Speaker 1: see which ones are standing in the way of production
Speaker 1: of domestic energy, with an emphasis of course on oil, gas, coal,
Speaker 1: and nuclear and only slight mention of renewables and other resources.
Speaker 1: So those are the immediate things. The lifting of the
Speaker 1: coal moratorium on public lands that was put in place
Speaker 1: because studies have shown that coal federal coal is being
Speaker 1: sold at below market value and in the United States
Speaker 1: is actually losing money on coal leasing. Um that that's
Speaker 1: been lifted. So that's an immediate thing. And then there's
Speaker 1: a whole in a much more important second category of
Speaker 1: rules that are already in the books, like the Clean
Speaker 1: Power Plan, like the methane rules for new oil and
Speaker 1: gas facilities and so forth. UM. I'll let Charles talking
Speaker 1: about some of this as well. And for those the
Speaker 1: rule does the order does nothing, those will have to
Speaker 1: go through notice and comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act.
Speaker 1: They'll then be challenged in court, And as many commentators
Speaker 1: have said already, and I'll just repeat, it'll be years
Speaker 1: before we know whether any of these proposed rollbacks of
Speaker 1: rules that are already on the books will actually be
Speaker 1: upheld by the courts. Chuck, what do you consider to
Speaker 1: be the most hurtful to the environment of all these possibilities. Well,
Speaker 1: I think if you look at the the rules, obviously
Speaker 1: the Clean Power Plan, if it were to be overturned,
Speaker 1: that could extremely hurtful, and then the methane rule and
Speaker 1: the flaring of methane. And also you know now they're
Speaker 1: they're looking at One of the things that they can
Speaker 1: do right away is the Obama administration had basically said
Speaker 1: you have to consider the effects of climate change in
Speaker 1: all kinds of decisions. Now that's going to be reversed.
Speaker 1: But I think one of I think that, as Pat said,
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff you don't really know if
Speaker 1: it's going to happen. One of the things, though, that
Speaker 1: you don't know, is that the effects of these actions,
Speaker 1: if you look at them on an international in an
Speaker 1: international sense, could really uh sort of slow the momentum
Speaker 1: from the Paris Climate Accords and give countries like India
Speaker 1: and I think less with China because I think they're
Speaker 1: really moving forward for other reasons. It's abod a place
Speaker 1: like India, which is really becoming one of the biggest
Speaker 1: greenhouse gas emitters, could really take advantage and say, well,
Speaker 1: the United States looks like they're not really too interested
Speaker 1: in pursuing these climate change goals, and so I think, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're an emerging economy and we're growing and
Speaker 1: we're gonna I think we may have to put some
Speaker 1: of that on the back burner. So that, to my mind,
Speaker 1: is one of the fallouts that could really end up
Speaker 1: hurting the climate change effort more than some of these
Speaker 1: other things, because I think for a variety of reason
Speaker 1: Pat touched on some of them, and I'll just add
Speaker 1: another one. I think the economics of coal just are
Speaker 1: pointing to the fact that it's not going to be
Speaker 1: it's not going to come back. And to the extent
Speaker 1: that you could talk about some possible new coal jobs,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of any new coal exploration will
Speaker 1: likely be done with machines more than men. So think
Speaker 1: that I think that's not going to have much of
Speaker 1: an impact, But I have a concern about what it
Speaker 1: means for the global effort. If you just take the
Speaker 1: United States out of the kind of leadership role that
Speaker 1: we had under the previous administration. Environmental groups and a
Speaker 1: coalition of mostly Democratic states and cities have called President
Speaker 1: Trump's Executive Order on Energy dangerous and illegal. The order
Speaker 1: directs federal agencies to begin reconsidering and rolling back policies
Speaker 1: implemented by the Obama administration to combat climate change and
Speaker 1: fulfill American commitments under the Paris Climate Accords. We're talking
Speaker 1: about the President's executive Order with Chuck Warren, a partner
Speaker 1: at Cramer Levin, and Pat Parente, professor at Vermont Law School.
Speaker 1: Pat We've been talking about how it's going to take
Speaker 1: a bunch of agency action here UH to implement a
Speaker 1: lot of the things the President says he wants to
Speaker 1: do to roll back these regulations, and this coalition says
Speaker 1: it's gonna sue UH over whatever it is that they do.
Speaker 1: How much freedom of action do these federal agencies actually
Speaker 1: have to roll back the rules that the Obama administration implemented. Well,
Speaker 1: they've got to go through the same process they went
Speaker 1: through to build up the rules, to to adopt the rules,
Speaker 1: to repeal them. UM. And that's all governed by the
Speaker 1: Administrative Procedure Act. It requires public notice and comment and
Speaker 1: some instances that may require public hearings or meetings UM,
Speaker 1: and a chance for people to weigh in and the
Speaker 1: response to their comments. It requires a factual basis, a
Speaker 1: scientific basis, a legal basis. UM. So you know, you
Speaker 1: can't snap your fingers and say, I don't like this rule,
Speaker 1: I'm going to repeal it. UM. You've got to go
Speaker 1: through a lengthy administrative process first, and then, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, that inevitably will be followed by litigation challenging
Speaker 1: whatever the new rules that the Trump administration adopts UH,
Speaker 1: that will have to go through addicial review process the
Speaker 1: same way the Obama rules did. And that's why I
Speaker 1: and others have said it will be years, frankly before
Speaker 1: we get a final resolution, and that will probably have
Speaker 1: to come from the United States Supreme Court. And who
Speaker 1: knows who will be sitting there when and if these
Speaker 1: rules finally make their way there, Chuck. The Clean Power
Speaker 1: Plan was the cornerstone of President Obama's effort to combat
Speaker 1: climate change. It is in court, and the Trump administration
Speaker 1: is asking a federal appeals Court to put its review
Speaker 1: of the CPP on hold. What will happen in that case, Well, actually,
Speaker 1: I I don't know if they're going to put it
Speaker 1: on hold, because effectively a couple of things can happen.
Speaker 1: If they make a decision and uphold it, it's still
Speaker 1: have to go to the Supreme Court because there's still
Speaker 1: is that you know, a state that's in place and
Speaker 1: so um it if they make it. If they make
Speaker 1: a decision against it and say that you know, and
Speaker 1: they want to send it back d p A, then
Speaker 1: obviously E p A it will go back to the
Speaker 1: PA and that will be a big defeat for the
Speaker 1: environmental side. But I don't think it. I don't think
Speaker 1: it makes much sense for the court to really put
Speaker 1: it on hold now because even if they decided to
Speaker 1: uphold it, it still has to go to the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: and it's still going to take a while before it's
Speaker 1: uh decided. And I think one thing to point out
Speaker 1: in this though, is that more than this rule, it's
Speaker 1: the economics that have been driving things, and the use
Speaker 1: of coal is weighed down because the price of natural
Speaker 1: gas is low. We have an abundant source of natural
Speaker 1: gas that's going to continue, and a lot of utilities
Speaker 1: have moved away from coal. I mean, the only thing
Speaker 1: you get out of this is you'd run a few
Speaker 1: more old cold plants longer. I don't know that that
Speaker 1: would lead to any increase in jobs. It's probably not,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't really do anything visa the Independent. In fact,
Speaker 1: we're pretty independent now and every all the forecast looks
Speaker 1: like we're going to become even more independent. So I
Speaker 1: think it's in one sense, the Clean Power Plan is
Speaker 1: very important, but I think that the facts and the
Speaker 1: economics are inexorably leading to where the Clean Power Plan
Speaker 1: wants to go. Anyway, Well, speaking of the economics path,
Speaker 1: you know, the the order, as we've been discussing, kind
Speaker 1: of emphasizes coal and oil a lot in what the
Speaker 1: President is trying to promote. What is the impact likely
Speaker 1: to be of this order on their renewable energy industry,
Speaker 1: which has been growing so much. I agree wholeheartedly with
Speaker 1: Chuck's comments. You know, Trump can try to repeal administrative rules,
Speaker 1: but he can't repeal the market, and he can't repeal science,
Speaker 1: and both things are moving inexorably forward. And on the
Speaker 1: science side, of course, it's it's all bad news. You know,
Speaker 1: the effects of climate change are bad and getting worse
Speaker 1: all the time. They're irreversible. The science is unmistakable, and
Speaker 1: there's nothing he can say or do that will change
Speaker 1: any of that. And on the economic side, UH, you
Speaker 1: know it just to cite one factor here that you'll
Speaker 1: be you'll recognize, Moody's Investor Services has just proposed projected
Speaker 1: fifty six gigawatts of Midwest coal fire generation UH is
Speaker 1: at serious risk of closure UM in the next few years.
Speaker 1: So UM, the market is moving very strongly towards renewables.
Speaker 1: They're still still big obstacles UH to full deployment of
Speaker 1: renewable storage being the biggest one. But you know, there's
Speaker 1: lots of work being done to overcome those obstacles, and
Speaker 1: there's very, very every reason to believe that they will
Speaker 1: be overcome. The grid is is modernizing and getting smarter
Speaker 1: all the time, it's integrated all ready. We're seeing that
Speaker 1: solar um is out producing every other fuel for electricity
Speaker 1: in terms of job creation five to one. In fact,
Speaker 1: solar is the fastest growing sector of the employment market
Speaker 1: right now. So those are just a few of many
Speaker 1: indicators that the Trump order is cutting against where the
Speaker 1: market is going and certainly against what the science says
Speaker 1: we need to do, uh to provide a safe sustainable
Speaker 1: future and Americans, but for everybody on Earth. And on
Speaker 1: that note, Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecast that wind and
Speaker 1: solar energy will grow over the next three years even
Speaker 1: without the Clean Power Plan. So, Chuck, do you see
Speaker 1: some of these states that are taking on climate change
Speaker 1: benefiting from the market on renewable energy and maybe at
Speaker 1: the end of a few years they'll have the market cornered. Well,
Speaker 1: I tune. I think that a good point in the
Speaker 1: sense that California has been sprinting ahead on renewables. And
Speaker 1: I just saw something where there's like over two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand jobs just in California, uh, for in the renewable
Speaker 1: energy sector. And I do think that the states that
Speaker 1: move ahead in this area are going to be catching
Speaker 1: the wave here of employment. And to put that in perspective,
Speaker 1: the coal industree now employs something like sixty seven thousand jobs.
Speaker 1: It's obviously way down from what it was thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: And if you just look at the state of California
Speaker 1: and renewables, you're over two hundred thousand jobs. So you're
Speaker 1: looking at what if you really want to do something
Speaker 1: about jobs, you put the focus on renewable energy as Pat.
Speaker 1: I mean, I agree with what Pat was saying completely. Chuck, Chuck,
Speaker 1: thank you. That's that's uh, that's Chuck Warren, a partner
Speaker 1: at Kramer, Levin and tell Us and Frankel, and Pat Parento,
Speaker 1: a professor at Vermont Law School. Thanks very much for
Speaker 1: being here. On Bloomberg Letter discussed the President's Executive Order
Speaker 1: on Energy and Economic Growth.