EPA has 'plenty of tools' to battle climate change without Obama regulations, experts say

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt could help the U.S. make a significant dent in emissions of carbon dioxide if he were to start a sincere effort to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan with a more modest regulation, experts say.

“The EPA in a serious effort has plenty of tools to gather information on how power plants operate, analyze that information and identify ways that significant emissions reductions could be mandated on site,” said Joe Goffman, a chief architect of the Clean Power Plan who was the lead attorney at the EPA when the Obama administration created the rule in 2015. “You could tee up a lot of options, including ones that are aggressive.”