WEBVTT - Trump Climate Rollbacks Face Legal Scrutiny (Audio) 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.720 Yesterday, surrounded by coal miners and coal executives, President Trump 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:07.240 signed a sweeping executive order meant to reverse Obama administration 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:10.320 policies on power plants and climate change, which were meant 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:13.520 to fulfill the United States commitments to reduce emissions under 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.239 the Paris Climate Accords. The executive order will require federal 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:21.760 agencies to reconsider or revise numerous emissions related rules, and 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.639 some states and environmentalists are already gearing up to sue 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.240 over possible changes. The eventual impact of the order, meanwhile, 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.319 is not yet clear. Here with us to talk about 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:34.800 the President's executive order are Charles Warren, a partner at 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.800 Kramer Levin Neftalis and Frankel, and Patrick Parentea, professor at 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:44.680 the Vermont Law School pat The executive order the President's 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:49.760 signed is entitled Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. What 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:55.960 will this order do to promote American energy independence? Do much? 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.920 The order can be broken down in three parts. One 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.880 the immediate effect, which is to repeal many of the 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:08.959 Obama administration policies and guidance with regard to reducing carbon 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:13.039 pollution that's causing climate change, and also preparing for the 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:17.800 already evident impacts of climate change, So those those things 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.360 that were not formal rules were wiped off the books 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.760 with a stroke of a pen. The other thing, of course, 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.160 is that he directed all of the agencies of government 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.760 to look at their their rules, policies, procedures and and 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.959 see which ones are standing in the way of production 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:37.440 of domestic energy, with an emphasis of course on oil, gas, coal, 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:42.000 and nuclear and only slight mention of renewables and other resources. 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:44.800 So those are the immediate things. The lifting of the 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.440 coal moratorium on public lands that was put in place 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.720 because studies have shown that coal federal coal is being 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.560 sold at below market value and in the United States 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.160 is actually losing money on coal leasing. Um that that's 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.120 been lifted. So that's an immediate thing. And then there's 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.360 a whole in a much more important second category of 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:07.320 rules that are already in the books, like the Clean 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.320 Power Plan, like the methane rules for new oil and 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.799 gas facilities and so forth. UM. I'll let Charles talking 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:17.280 about some of this as well. And for those the 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:19.920 rule does the order does nothing, those will have to 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:24.320 go through notice and comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act. 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.440 They'll then be challenged in court, And as many commentators 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.359 have said already, and I'll just repeat, it'll be years 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.960 before we know whether any of these proposed rollbacks of 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.720 rules that are already on the books will actually be 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:42.120 upheld by the courts. Chuck, what do you consider to 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:50.760 be the most hurtful to the environment of all these possibilities. Well, 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:55.360 I think if you look at the the rules, obviously 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.480 the Clean Power Plan, if it were to be overturned, 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:06.280 that could extremely hurtful, and then the methane rule and 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:12.560 the flaring of methane. And also you know now they're 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.280 they're looking at One of the things that they can 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:20.000 do right away is the Obama administration had basically said 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.600 you have to consider the effects of climate change in 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.480 all kinds of decisions. Now that's going to be reversed. 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.880 But I think one of I think that, as Pat said, 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:31.480 a lot of this stuff you don't really know if 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.239 it's going to happen. One of the things, though, that 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:40.280 you don't know, is that the effects of these actions, 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.040 if you look at them on an international in an 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:47.960 international sense, could really uh sort of slow the momentum 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:54.040 from the Paris Climate Accords and give countries like India 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:56.440 and I think less with China because I think they're 0:03:56.440 --> 0:04:00.640 really moving forward for other reasons. It's abod a place 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.720 like India, which is really becoming one of the biggest 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:10.000 greenhouse gas emitters, could really take advantage and say, well, 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.760 the United States looks like they're not really too interested 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:17.640 in pursuing these climate change goals, and so I think, uh, 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.560 you know, we're an emerging economy and we're growing and 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.040 we're gonna I think we may have to put some 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.080 of that on the back burner. So that, to my mind, 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.400 is one of the fallouts that could really end up 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.760 hurting the climate change effort more than some of these 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.080 other things, because I think for a variety of reason 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:40.560 Pat touched on some of them, and I'll just add 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:45.080 another one. I think the economics of coal just are 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:46.960 pointing to the fact that it's not going to be 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:49.640 it's not going to come back. And to the extent 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.680 that you could talk about some possible new coal jobs, 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.600 I mean a lot of any new coal exploration will 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.360 likely be done with machines more than men. So think 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.680 that I think that's not going to have much of 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.960 an impact, But I have a concern about what it 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:09.760 means for the global effort. If you just take the 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.599 United States out of the kind of leadership role that 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.560 we had under the previous administration. Environmental groups and a 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:21.400 coalition of mostly Democratic states and cities have called President 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.640 Trump's Executive Order on Energy dangerous and illegal. The order 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.040 directs federal agencies to begin reconsidering and rolling back policies 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.760 implemented by the Obama administration to combat climate change and 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.480 fulfill American commitments under the Paris Climate Accords. We're talking 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.680 about the President's executive Order with Chuck Warren, a partner 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:44.120 at Cramer Levin, and Pat Parente, professor at Vermont Law School. 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.279 Pat We've been talking about how it's going to take 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.599 a bunch of agency action here UH to implement a 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:53.719 lot of the things the President says he wants to 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:58.159 do to roll back these regulations, and this coalition says 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.800 it's gonna sue UH over whatever it is that they do. 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.920 How much freedom of action do these federal agencies actually 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:10.240 have to roll back the rules that the Obama administration implemented. Well, 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:12.440 they've got to go through the same process they went 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.320 through to build up the rules, to to adopt the rules, 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.200 to repeal them. UM. And that's all governed by the 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.920 Administrative Procedure Act. It requires public notice and comment and 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:27.400 some instances that may require public hearings or meetings UM, 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.280 and a chance for people to weigh in and the 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:34.160 response to their comments. It requires a factual basis, a 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:38.960 scientific basis, a legal basis. UM. So you know, you 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.240 can't snap your fingers and say, I don't like this rule, 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.720 I'm going to repeal it. UM. You've got to go 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:48.039 through a lengthy administrative process first, and then, as I 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:52.880 said earlier, that inevitably will be followed by litigation challenging 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:58.560 whatever the new rules that the Trump administration adopts UH, 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.279 that will have to go through addicial review process the 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.080 same way the Obama rules did. And that's why I 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.279 and others have said it will be years, frankly before 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.200 we get a final resolution, and that will probably have 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.680 to come from the United States Supreme Court. And who 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:16.120 knows who will be sitting there when and if these 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.680 rules finally make their way there, Chuck. The Clean Power 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:23.680 Plan was the cornerstone of President Obama's effort to combat 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:27.480 climate change. It is in court, and the Trump administration 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.040 is asking a federal appeals Court to put its review 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:40.160 of the CPP on hold. What will happen in that case, Well, actually, 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:41.920 I I don't know if they're going to put it 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.320 on hold, because effectively a couple of things can happen. 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:50.080 If they make a decision and uphold it, it's still 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.240 have to go to the Supreme Court because there's still 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.280 is that you know, a state that's in place and 0:07:55.360 --> 0:08:00.240 so um it if they make it. If they make 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.120 a decision against it and say that you know, and 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:05.240 they want to send it back d p A, then 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.880 obviously E p A it will go back to the 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.200 PA and that will be a big defeat for the 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.640 environmental side. But I don't think it. I don't think 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.000 it makes much sense for the court to really put 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.400 it on hold now because even if they decided to 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.600 uphold it, it still has to go to the Supreme Court, 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:24.680 and it's still going to take a while before it's 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.400 uh decided. And I think one thing to point out 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:32.960 in this though, is that more than this rule, it's 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:37.600 the economics that have been driving things, and the use 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:42.360 of coal is weighed down because the price of natural 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:46.200 gas is low. We have an abundant source of natural 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.479 gas that's going to continue, and a lot of utilities 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.920 have moved away from coal. I mean, the only thing 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:54.720 you get out of this is you'd run a few 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.720 more old cold plants longer. I don't know that that 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:03.440 would lead to any increase in jobs. It's probably not, 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:08.640 and it wouldn't really do anything visa the Independent. In fact, 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:12.360 we're pretty independent now and every all the forecast looks 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.520 like we're going to become even more independent. So I 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:20.280 think it's in one sense, the Clean Power Plan is 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:24.560 very important, but I think that the facts and the 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:29.480 economics are inexorably leading to where the Clean Power Plan 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.560 wants to go. Anyway, Well, speaking of the economics path, 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.360 you know, the the order, as we've been discussing, kind 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:40.040 of emphasizes coal and oil a lot in what the 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:44.720 President is trying to promote. What is the impact likely 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:47.840 to be of this order on their renewable energy industry, 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.640 which has been growing so much. I agree wholeheartedly with 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:56.280 Chuck's comments. You know, Trump can try to repeal administrative rules, 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.640 but he can't repeal the market, and he can't repeal science, 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.440 and both things are moving inexorably forward. And on the 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.520 science side, of course, it's it's all bad news. You know, 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.040 the effects of climate change are bad and getting worse 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:13.440 all the time. They're irreversible. The science is unmistakable, and 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:15.400 there's nothing he can say or do that will change 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.120 any of that. And on the economic side, UH, you 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.320 know it just to cite one factor here that you'll 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.839 be you'll recognize, Moody's Investor Services has just proposed projected 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:30.920 fifty six gigawatts of Midwest coal fire generation UH is 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:35.600 at serious risk of closure UM in the next few years. 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:40.000 So UM, the market is moving very strongly towards renewables. 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.760 They're still still big obstacles UH to full deployment of 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.320 renewable storage being the biggest one. But you know, there's 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:51.640 lots of work being done to overcome those obstacles, and 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:53.800 there's very, very every reason to believe that they will 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.240 be overcome. The grid is is modernizing and getting smarter 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.640 all the time, it's integrated all ready. We're seeing that 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:08.040 solar um is out producing every other fuel for electricity 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.800 in terms of job creation five to one. In fact, 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.440 solar is the fastest growing sector of the employment market 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.600 right now. So those are just a few of many 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:22.560 indicators that the Trump order is cutting against where the 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.000 market is going and certainly against what the science says 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:29.679 we need to do, uh to provide a safe sustainable 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:33.600 future and Americans, but for everybody on Earth. And on 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.920 that note, Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecast that wind and 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:40.960 solar energy will grow over the next three years even 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.840 without the Clean Power Plan. So, Chuck, do you see 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:49.000 some of these states that are taking on climate change 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:53.880 benefiting from the market on renewable energy and maybe at 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:57.800 the end of a few years they'll have the market cornered. Well, 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.080 I tune. I think that a good point in the 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:06.720 sense that California has been sprinting ahead on renewables. And 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.000 I just saw something where there's like over two hundred 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:13.400 thousand jobs just in California, uh, for in the renewable 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.400 energy sector. And I do think that the states that 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.720 move ahead in this area are going to be catching 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.719 the wave here of employment. And to put that in perspective, 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:28.360 the coal industree now employs something like sixty seven thousand jobs. 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:32.719 It's obviously way down from what it was thirty years ago. 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.319 And if you just look at the state of California 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.679 and renewables, you're over two hundred thousand jobs. So you're 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.120 looking at what if you really want to do something 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:47.000 about jobs, you put the focus on renewable energy as Pat. 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.760 I mean, I agree with what Pat was saying completely. Chuck, Chuck, 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:54.440 thank you. That's that's uh, that's Chuck Warren, a partner 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.160 at Kramer, Levin and tell Us and Frankel, and Pat Parento, 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.120 a professor at Vermont Law School. Thanks very much for 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:02.880 being here. On Bloomberg Letter discussed the President's Executive Order 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:04.720 on Energy and Economic Growth.