This file photo shows the Rancho Seco Solar II facility in a field near the decomissioned Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station near Herald, California. A Trump executive order is now aiming to dismantle state laws that aim to promote production of clean energy. — Loren Elliott/The New York Times
FIRST, the Trump administration moved to dismantle federal climate regulations. Now it has launched an assault on efforts at the state and local levels, where many leaders are still working to try to avoid the dangerous impacts of global warming.
President Donald Trump outlined the move in an expansive executive order he signed on April 8 directing the Justice Department to block all “burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security”.
