WHITE BLUFF: One of the coal burners.


Andrew Wheeler,
acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under Donald Trump, is forging ahead with a plan to roll back Obama-era efforts to reduce air pollution by electric power plants. It’s a boon to the coal industry, for which Wheeler once lobbied. The Arkansas chapter of the Sierra Club says it’s bad news. Not Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. She loves the smell of burning coal in the morning.

Statement from Glen Hooks of the Arkansas chapter of the Sierra Club:

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“The Wheeler-Pruitt Dirty Power Plan is one of the Trump Administration’s most egregious attacks on clean air, public health, and our fragile climate. The proposed rollback of life-saving clean air safeguards is an anemic rule that subjects the EPA to the very coal industry executives who used to sign Wheeler’s paychecks and want to pollute with impunity. That is why the Sierra Club and communities across the country are committed to fighting this rollback and continuing our work retiring coal plants, championing clean energy, and protecting the health of our families. America will continue moving away from dirty, polluting fossil fuels and confront the climate crisis head on, with or without the Trump Administration.

“Right here in Arkansas, the Clean Power Plan would reduce our carbon emissions by more than a third. Those are the kinds of positive actions that lead to fewer asthma attacks, fewer heart attacks, and fewer premature deaths, all while creating thousands of clean energy jobs in the Natural State. The Wheeler-Pruitt Dirty Power Plan nullifies those positive changes and endangers our air—all in an effort to prop up the the dying and dirty coal industry.

“While the Clean Power Plan set carbon reduction targets for each state, the Dirty Power Plan lets states set do-nothing carbon pollution limits. This falls far short of EPA’s obligation under the Clean Air Act to ensure maximum reductions from major sources like our dirtiest power plants. Arkansas and our nation both deserve better

Count on Arkansas to enforce clean air rules? Keep dreaming. Because shortly after came Attorney General Leslie Rutledge cheering higher air pollution.

Republican Attorneys General Association Chair and Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge issued the following statement after President Trump and the Environmental Protection Agency tossed out the so-called Clean Power Plan:

“I am thrilled the Trump administration kept its word to the American people by throwing out the so-called ‘Clean Power Plan.’ The President and the Environmental Protection Agency have restored – through the “Affordable Clean Energy” rule – the rule of law, returned power to the states and added needed certainty to our energy industry – both our regulators and consumers.

“This day was only possible because of a bipartisan collection of state attorneys general who stood up to the Obama administration and filed repeated legal challenges to the blatant overreach of executive power. And, together, we won an historic stay from the Supreme Court of the United States – stopping the so-called ‘Clean Power Plan.'”

It is called clean power because it’s cleaner. And that is NOT ‘fake news.’

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