Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt announced on Monday the Trump administration will scrap the Clean Power Plan, a keystone of the Obama administration’s efforts to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants, especially coal-fired plants. Pruitt said the act of canceling the Clean Power Plan will become official when he signs a proposed EPA rule change on Tuesday.
The following statements from energy and environment experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Media Specialist Billy Aouste at [email protected] and 312/377-4000 or (cell) 847/445-7554.
[NOTE: Many of the experts quoted below are speakers at The Heartland Institute’s America First Energy Conference, which will be held on November 9, 2017, in Houston, Texas. Register for media credentials at this link.]
“The war on fossil fuels is nearing an end. This is a wise, science-based decision by Administrator Scott Pruitt and President Donald Trump. The real winners here are not only coal miners and coal states, but all those Americans who simply can’t afford massive increases in their energy bills as a result of the Clean Power Plan.”
Tim Huelskamp, Ph.D.
President, The Heartland Institute
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312/377-4000
Dr. Huelskamp represented Kansas’ 1st District in the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2017. He is a speaker The Heartland Institute’s America First Energy Conference, which will be held on November 9, 2017, in Houston, Texas.
“Repealing the Clean Power Plan is a powerful step toward achieving the Trump administration’s goal of making the United States a dominating force in global energy markets. The Clean Power Plan was economically crippling and environmentally meaningless. Cost estimates for the Clean Power Plan ranged from $8 billion per year to $39 billion, and the regulations would have caused electricity prices to increase dramatically.
“Although economically punitive, CPP would have had zero measurable effects on future global temperatures. The climate models used by the Obama administration to estimate how much global warming would have been averted by these regulations found CPP would have averted a mere 0.018 degrees Celsius by 2100, an amount too small to accurately measure with even the most sophisticated scientific equipment.
“Scrapping the Clean Power Plan is the first of a series of steps that must be taken to reverse the Obama administration’s energy policies, which have for many years put their thumb on the scale in favor of renewables, regardless of their cost to consumers.”
Isaac Orr
Research Fellow, Energy and Environment Policy
The Heartland Institute
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312/377-4000
Isaac Orr is a speaker at The Heartland Institute’s America First Energy Conference, which will be held on November 9, 2017, in Houston, Texas.
“Numerous constitutional scholars have argued the Clean Power Plan was unconstitutional because it violates the division of authority between the states and the federal government and the Fifth Amendment’s property rights protections and due process provisions. Even if it weren’t unconstitutional, it’s still terrible policy, because it imposes huge costs on individuals and businesses and makes the nation’s electric power supply less reliable—all while doing nothing to prevent climate change or to protect human health or the environment. Good riddance to a bad regulation.”
H. Sterling Burnett
Research Fellow, Environment & Energy Policy
The Heartland Institute
Managing Editor, Environment & Climate News
[email protected]
312/377-4000
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is a speaker at The Heartland Institute’s America First Energy Conference, which will be held on November 9, 2017, in Houston, Texas.
“The Clean Power Plan was a massive regulation that would have raised electricity prices by double digits each year and cost consumers up to $40 billion annually. Even Gina McCarthy, Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator, admitted CPP would create an infinitesimal environmental benefit. Now, thanks to Scott Pruitt, CPP is no more. It is another welcome move by a strongly pro-energy, pro-consumer Trump administration.”
Tim Benson
Policy Analyst
The Heartland Institute
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312/377-4000
“The 2015 Clean Power Plan was one of President Barack Obama’s signature efforts to eliminate coal-based electricity. Administrator Scott Pruitt’s announcement that the Environmental Protection Agency will pull back the Clean Power Plan is fantastic news for all Americans. Our society has enjoyed success because of its past commitment to free-market economics and fossil fuels, not in spite of them.
“The ‘regulate CO2’ push will focus ‘inside the fence’ on existing plants by trying to force the use of very expensive technology, but CO2 is a benign gas required for life on Earth, so there would be no commensurate environmental improvement under any CO2 regulatory regime.”
Fred Palmer
Senior Fellow, Energy Policy
The Heartland Institute
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312/377-4000
Fred Palmer is a speaker at The Heartland Institute’s America First Energy Conference, which will be held on November 9, 2017, in Houston, Texas.
“The move to end the Clean Power Plan is part of President Donald Trump’s pro-growth deregulation effort, which has already helped to cause the stock market to set numerous all-time records and grow the economy at a rate that’s 50 percent faster than at any time under President Barack Obama. This is exactly what the voters wanted when they voted in November.”
Peter Ferrara
Senior Fellow for Entitlement and Budget Policy
The Heartland Institute
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312/377-4000
Mr. Ferrara is the author of Power to the People: The New Road to Freedom and Prosperity for the Poor, Seniors, and Those Most in Need of the World’s Best Health Care (2015), and The Obamacare Disaster (2010).
“Thanks to the efforts of the Trump administration and Administrator Scott Pruitt, the absurd regulations imposed by the Obama administration are being rolled back. Step by step, the United States is moving back toward a more realistic regulatory environment, which means states and businesses will soon no longer need to spend money in federal courtrooms fighting for the right to do business freely.
“Over the coming months and years, the review of the carbon-dioxide ‘endangerment finding’ will be critical to ensuring the federal government has a limited role in settling environmental issues and that businesses will be able to expand at a faster rate.”
Bette Grande
Research Fellow, Energy Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
Ms. Grande represented the 41st District in the North Dakota Legislature from 1996 to 2014. She will be a panel moderator at The Heartland Institute’s America First Energy Conference, which will be held on November 9, 2017, in Houston, Texas.
“Prosperity saves lives and makes for a cleaner environment. Scrapping the Clean Power Plan will lower energy prices and increase prosperity, thereby saving and enriching Americans’ lives and improving the environment.
“Removing President Barack Obama’s draconian rules on electricity production will lower energy costs, which will benefit lower-income people the most. The Clean Power Plan wouldn’t have had even a small effect on global temperature, but it surely would have ended up costing the American people billions of dollars.”
S.T. Karnick
Director of Publications
The Heartland Institute
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312/377-4000
“It is wonderful to see our government getting back to reality.”
Walter Cunningham
Apollo 7 Astronaut and Author
Policy Advisor, The Heartland Institute
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312/377-4000
“Administrator Scott Pruitt chose the right action today in announcing the administration’s withdrawal from the so-called Clean Power Plan. CPP was never about improving air quality or cleaning up the environment; it was a tactical advancement of Barack Obama’s war on coal.
“Today’s action by Pruitt is a wake-up call for those who continue to falsely claim carbon dioxide is a pollutant. It isn’t, so get over it! Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is essential for life on Earth. It will never cause the dangerous global warming that climate alarmists and their failed models predict. Future legal challenges to reverse Pruitt’s action are welcomed, as they will only fail in the end.”
Craig D. Idso
Senior Fellow, Environment
The Heartland Institute
Co-Editor, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change
[email protected]
312/377-4000
Craig D. Idso, Ph.D., is a speaker at The Heartland Institute’s America First Energy Conference, which will be held on November 9, 2017, in Houston, Texas.
“Scrapping the Clean Power Plan is another step toward abandoning the myth of anthropogenic global warming, and it follows President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. Eventually, the Trump administration should completely withdraw from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty, as described in my book, Clexit.”
Donn Dears
Energy Expert and General Electric Executive (retired)
Policy Advisor, The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
“Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is right to kill the hugely expensive Clean Power Plan. After all, it only controls carbon dioxide, which is simply plant food.
“The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change has cited more than 1,000 peer-reviewed studies showing that higher amounts of atmospheric carbon-dioxide enhance productivity of forests and grasslands. Commercial greenhouses run at up to about four times the outside level of CO2 to boost plant growth.
“Increasing CO2 poses no direct hazard to human health, either. Concentrations in submarines can reach up to 25 times the normal atmospheric levels without causing harmful effects on the crew. Yet the CPP misleads readers by referring to CO2 as ‘carbon pollution,’ a huge deception.
“Even if one accepts the dubious notion humanity’s CO2 emissions threaten the climate, developing countries, the source of most of mankind’s CO2 emissions, have indicated they will not follow our lead, so America’s sacrifice would be for nothing.”
Tom Harris
Executive Director, International Climate Science Coalition
Policy Advisor, Energy and Environment
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
“I strongly welcome the decision of the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw the Obama administration’s so-called Clean Power Plan. If it had gone into effect, it would have imposed monumental costs on the American public based on a misreading of the Clean Air Act.
“While this is a good start, EPA needs to do much more to rein in the unjustifiable climate-alarmist actions of the Obama administration, as well as possible future administrations. In particular, it needs to reconsider and withdraw the ‘endangerment finding’ of 2009. This would greatly hinder EPA’s climate-alarmist agenda, by effectively revoking all of the Obama climate initiatives, past and present, including CPP.
“Convincing science on this issue now exists that could and should be used to bring about a revocation of the endangerment finding, as reported over the past year in my blog, Carlin Economics and Science. Reversing the endangerment finding would remove the continuing uncertainty as to what EPA may do in the future, which would improve the ability of everyone to make rational decisions related to climate. The reconsideration and withdrawal of the endangerment finding should go forward alongside the withdrawal of the CPP, and I strongly urge EPA to undertake this without further delay.”
Alan Carlin
Environmental Economist, Scientist (ret.)
Environmental Protection Agency
Policy Advisor, The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
“Scrapping clean power? Why, they must be in favor of dirtiness! But cleanliness has nothing to do with power in physics, which is simply energy per unit time. There is dirty power in play, but it does not come from physics. It comes from dirty politics: distorting language with false terms like ‘clean power’ to confuse and manipulate people. The objective is to befuddle minds into jumbling carbon dioxide together with soot and toxic gases, which are then cleansed with political virtue instead of engineering.
“Meanwhile, attention is diverted from engineering and economics, the only details that should matter when discussing such a topic. Let’s dispense with the dirty political word games.”
Christopher Essex
Professor, Department of Applied Mathematics
University of Western Ontario
Policy Advisor, The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
“I strongly support the Trump administration’s effort to repeal the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, because it is not justified on a scientific or public health basis. CPP has largely been supported based on a cost-benefit ratio that assumes co-benefits from the reduction of alleged premature deaths resulting from reductions in fine particulate matter. I have very strong evidence showing PM2.5 does not cause premature deaths in the United States. I presented this evidence in my June 11, 2015, presentation at the Tenth International Conference on Climate Change (‘EPA’s Clean Power Plan and PM2.5-related Co-benefits‘), my March 23, 2017, presentation at the Twelfth International Conference on Climate Change (‘PM2.5 Does Not Cause Premature Deaths‘), an article I published earlier in 2017 (‘Fine Particulate Matter and Total Mortality in Cancer Prevention Study Cohort Reanalysis‘), and in my forthcoming letter to the editor in The New England Journal of Medicine.”
James E. Enstrom
Research Professor, UCLA School of Public Health
Policy Advisor, The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
James E. Enstrom, Ph.D., is a speaker at The Heartland Institute’s America First Energy Conference, which will be held on November 9, 2017, in Houston, Texas.
“The cleanest power of all is that which isn’t used in the first place because of investment in higher-efficiency buildings, factories, and homes. That is where the free market always makes better economic decisions than any government regulatory process ever could.”
Tom Sheahen, Ph.D.
Professional Physicist and Energy Expert
Policy Advisor, The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
“After more than two decades of study, I am convinced that life here on Earth has been getting better and better for the billions of we people who make this little blue marble our beloved home.
“The ‘tons and tons of carbon we are spewing into the atmosphere every day,’ as Al Gore puts it, are actually a good thing. In his rants that the Earth will become uninhabitable, former Vice President Gore is referring the carbon dioxide gas being released into the atmosphere as we power our civilization with fossil fuels. However, it turns out that as the ‘greenhouse gases’ we release combine with nature’s carbon dioxide to make the planet greener and greener.
“Scientists have worked hard to learn ways to process coal so it burns cleaner. And they have worked diligently to improve our coal burning power plants to eliminate any particulate pollution. Coal continues to be essential to provide the finer points of our civilization such as electric power for our computers, smart phone and phone networks, lights and air conditioning.
“So since the invisible, odorless gas carbon dioxide is not a pollutant – and it is making the Earth greener and greener – scrapping the so-called Clean Air Plan of the Obama EPA was an excellent step forward.”
John Coleman
Meteorologist
Founder, The Weather Channel
Policy Advisor, Environment
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
Tim Huelskamp served as president of The Heartland Institute from 2017 to 2019.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
Tim Benson joined The Heartland Institute in September 2015 as a policy analyst in the Government Relations Department.
Frederick D. Palmer is a policy advisor for energy and climate at The Heartland Institute.
Peter Ferrara, J.D., is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute and an advisor for entitlement reform and budget policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation.
Bette Grande is a State Government Relations Manager at The Heartland Institute. Prior to coming to Heartland, she served as a North Dakota state representative from 1996-2014, representing the 41st district.
S. T. Karnick is a senior fellow and director of publications for The Heartland Institute.
Walter Cunningham was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 7, the first manned flight test of the Apollo Program to land a man on the Moon. Cunningham is a member of the Astronaut Hall of Fame and a Policy Advisor to The Heartland Institute.
Dr. Idso is the founder, former president, and currently chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.
Tom Harris is executive director of the International Climate Science Coalition
Dr. Carlin, now retired, was a 37-year career environmental economist and scientist at EPA when, in June 2009, the Competitive Enterprise Institute broke the story of his negative 100-page report reviewing the agency’s draft Endangerment Finding.
Dr. James E. Enstrom is Research Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health and Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.
John Coleman founded The Weather Channel and was the original weathercaster on ABC’s “Good Morning America” with David Hartman and Joan Lunden. He retired in 2014 after more than 60 years in broadcasting. Coleman passed away on January 20, 2018.
