Earlier this week (March 27-31, 2017)  President Trump signed a Farm Bureau-supported executive order unwinding many of the energy and climate change regulations policies put in place by the previous administration.  

The order begins the process of overturning Environmental Protection Agency carbon emissions standards for existing and newly constructed power plants, known as the Clean Power Plan; withdraws interagency calculations of the “social cost of carbon,” a metric regulators use to weigh the damage from increased carbon emissions; directs the Interior Department to end its moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands; and directs EPA and the Interior Department to review rules that govern oil and natural gas development, including EPA’s methane emissions rules for new sources and Interior’s rules that govern fracking on federal lands. It also scuttles a White House directive that required agencies to consider climate change when reviewing energy, infrastructure and other proposed projects under the National Environmental Policy Act; requires federal agencies to broadly review existing rules and policies that might thwart energy development; and rescinds several policy memos and orders on tackling climate policy broadly.