Nathan Richardson (legal details at www.rff.org):
There will be plenty of time for deep thinking on the policy ramifications of last night’s surprising election result. Until then, here’s a quick summary of the likely impact of the Trump administration on climate and environmental policy.
1) The Clean Power Plan
The Clean Power Plan, enacted by EPA under the Clean Air Act, is the most significant federal carbon-reduction measure to date. Trump has promised to scrap it. The CPP, however, is a final rulemaking and is therefore federal law. It cannot be discarded at the stroke of a pen. However, Trump does have two possible paths to doing so.
First, Trump could simply refuse to defend the CPP, which is currently being challenged in federal appellate court. ...
Alternatively, Trump could undo the CPP through another round of notice-and-comment rulemaking. ...
Both approaches have further legal consequences. ... Look at the long fight over snowmobile use in Yellowstone for an example, and imagine what higher-stakes litigation will be like.
2) The Clean Air Act
An alternative (or additional) approach is to strip climate change authority out of the Clean Air Act entirely. ...
There are two reasons to suspect this won’t happen. One is that it’s no longer a priority without Obama in the White House - there’s no need to restrain Trump from using the Clean Air Act on climate in ways that Congress doesn’t like. The other is that Senate Democrats would likely filibuster the bill.
3) Other rules
The Obama administration has finalized a number of other environmental rulemakings, such as limits on methane emissions from oil and gas wells, and the “Waters of the United States” rule defining federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. Should Trump decide to retract these rules (as he has promised for the WoTUS rule), the process would be the same as that described above for the Clean Power Plan - a new rulemaking would be needed, and would be subject to litigation.
Past experience suggests that a more likely approach to lower-profile rulemakings is to slow-walk or halt enforcement, rather than explicitly reversing them. This, too, can be litigated ...
4) Paris
Trump has promised to “cancel” the Paris Agreement on climate change. In one sense, this is impossible - Paris is an international agreement, and Trump can no more “cancel” it than, say, the Geneva Conventions. He can, however, withdraw from the agreement. ...
5) Institutional Change
As Brad Plumer notes, this is a President who has publicly declared climate change to be a Chinese hoax and suggested doing away with the EPA entirely. Speaking as a lawyer, I don’t have much to say about either. Scrapping EPA would of course require new legislation, though filling top positions with appointees that do not believe their jobs should exist would do a lot to neuter the effectiveness of the agency. ...
It sounds like the only sure thing is there is going to be a lot of litigation.
