Final blow to Trump’s environmental deregulation efforts

On President Trump’s last day in office, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down his administration’s replacement of the Obama administration’s climate change regulations for power plants.
The ruling by a three-judge panel comprised of two Democratic appointees and one Trump-appointed judge was considered to be a final blow to Trump’s deregulatory agenda.
It was a unanimous decision to throw out the EPA’s Affordable Clean Energy rule which restricted the regulation of carbon emissions from power plants. In making the ruling, the judges sent the matter back to the agency where under a Biden administration, climate change will be prioritized.
“Because promulgation of the ACE Rule and its embedded repeal of the Clean Power Plan rested critically on a mistaken reading of the Clean Air Act, we vacate the ACE Rule and remand to the Agency,” the judges wrote reported Reuters.
Arguments were heard last October as Democratic-led states and environmentalists argued that the Trump administration’s repeal of the Obama Clean Power Plan was illegal.