“The war against coal is over.”

– EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, quoted in Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis, “EPA Chief Tells Coal Miners He Will Repeal Power Plant Rule Tuesday, Washington Post, October 9, 2017.

“We are committed to righting the wrongs of the Obama administration by cleaning the regulatory slate.  Any replacement rule will be done carefully, properly, and with humility, by listening to all those affected by the rule.”

– EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, quoted in EPA, “”EPA Takes Another Step To Advance President Trump’s America First Strategy, Proposes Repeal Of “Clean Power Plan” News Release, October 10, 2017.

On Tuesday, EPA Scott Pruitt issued notice of a forthcoming Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANOPR) to repeal the (misnamed) Clean Power Plan (CPP).

The anti-fossil-fuel ‘environmentalists’ (they support wind power and solar farms, hardly environmental) are worried. Natasha Geiling at ThinkProgress (Center for American Prosperity) stated:

[R]epealing the regulation will mean that states that have not begun transitioning to a low-carbon energy mix — places like Kentucky, or West Virginia — will no longer have any incentive to change their policies. Without a nationwide framework to drag laggard states into a clean energy mix, it will be difficult for the United States to achieve the kinds of deep, economy-wide reductions necessary to make progress on slowing climate change.

And, repealing the regulation will mean years of regulatory uncertainty, as the administration’s repeal and potential replacement plans are challenged in courts. Already, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D) have pledged to fight the administration’s efforts to repeal the plan in court.

And with each day of increasing carbon dioxide emissions, the alarmists’ climate math gets worse and worse because of the long-lived existence of CO2 in the atmosphere and the logarithmic (not linear) effect of CO2 forcing. Better yet, the US rethink/reversal can only encourage other countries to choose energy abundance over energy rationing/poverty.

The whole climate crusade, in other words, becomes more implausible by the day for everyone everywhere–a very good thing given consumer welfare, taxpayer welfare, and other social priorities for the (climate) dollar.

In tandem with the Paris withdrawal, CPP repeal makes good on the president’s America First strategy. Importantly, the CPP is all pain, no gain. Its negative effects on electricity prices and free-market-driven jobs would not have any appreciable effect on climate change. In fact, the very failure of the law to impact climate would be the excuse to ratchet up regulation further.

The EPA is on its way to a reversal of climate policy that must challenge–and defeat–the endangerment finding. CO2 is not a pollutant, and there are significant benefits in a CO2 enriched world. Furthermore, realistic economic analysis can show that real here-and-now economic costs cannot be recouped under realistic, distant climate scenarios. There is much to come on recalculating the social costs of regulation and social benefits of CO2 as a basis for public policy.