Trump to sign order next week on Obama’s coal moratorium, climate rules

President Trump is reportedly planning to sign an executive order next week to repeal numerous Obama administration environmental policies.

The order will have several provisions to undo Obama rules and policies, including ending the Interior Department’s moratorium on new coal mining on federal land and starting the process of repealing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan, Reuters reported, citing a White House official.

“Rescinding federal coal leasing moratorium is part of that executive order, which has lots of different components, including the Clean Power Plan,” the official told Reuters Wednesday.

The Clean Power Plan set limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, envisioning a 32 percent cut in emissions by the whole power sector by 2030.

{mosads}It was the main pillar of Obama’s second-term climate change push, which focused on executive actions after Congress failed in 2010 to pass a cap-and-trade bill for climate change. It has been on hold for a year thanks to a Supreme Court stay.

The coal moratorium was instituted in early 2016 as a way to stop new leases while Interior decides whether to charge higher prices to coal companies or otherwise implement policies to account for the climate change caused by the federal coal.

Trump and the Cabinet officials he appointed to the agencies — Scott Pruitt at the EPA and Ryan Zinke at Interior — oppose the policies and have pledged to undo them.

Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to begin dismantling another major Obama EPA rule, the Waters of the United States regulation.

He made clear that more environmental rollbacks are coming.

“We’re going to free up our country, and it’s going be done in a very environmental and positive environmental way, I will tell you that, but create millions of jobs,” he said. “So many jobs are delayed for so many years, and it’s unfair to everybody.”