A former Bush administration official expects President Trump to take action soon to begin rolling back the centerpiece of former President Barack Obama’s climate change agenda, the Clean Power Plan.
“I think we will see, fairly soon, steps to eliminate that, which by the way never went into effect because the Supreme Court at least had enough questions about it that they put it on hold,” said Jeff Holmstead, who was in the running to become Trump’s head of the Environmental Protection Agency before Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was nominated for the job.
Holmstead made the comments Thursday at an event discussing the prospects for a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, hosted by the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington.
Holmstead was former President George W. Bush’s air pollution chief at the EPA, the longest serving of any administration, and was involved in the Republican campaign to elect Mitt Romney four years ago.
He expects Obama’s climate regulations to not survive the Trump administration and says the nomination of Pruitt is an indication that the plan’s fate will be sealed before it reaches the Supreme Court.
“I don’t think it will ultimately get to the Supreme Court because I think it’s quite clear the officials within the Trump administration believe it’s unlawful and I know the nominee to be the head of EPA is quite familiar with those issues and is committed to the rule of law,” Holmstead said.
Pruitt is one of the lead litigants in a major lawsuit involving nearly 30 other state attorneys general opposing the Clean Power Plan in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The group argues that the plan, which directs states to cut their greenhouse gas emissions one-third by 2030, oversteps the EPA’s authority and it is unconstitutional. Many scientists blame the emissions for raising the Earth’s temperature by burning fossil fuels.
Holmstead said he believes a carbon tax to combat climate change is “politically unrealistic,” because Democrats would never agree to remove EPA regulations as a necessary compromise to put the tax in place. He and others believe the tax would need to improve government efficiency to succeed. Having regulations and a tax is considered inefficient and burdensome.
He recalled an off-the-record panel discussion during his time on the Romney campaign with senior officials from the Obama administration and Republicans from Capitol Hill, where the untenability of a carbon tax was brought to light.
The topic was raised by the moderator of the discussion, “when are we going to have a serious conversation about a carbon tax?” Holmstead said.
“One of the participants said to the Democrats ‘that’s probably a conversation worth having, but we have to go into that conversation saying if we have a carbon tax that will replace other things, [like] the Clean Air Act, [environmental] reviews. I mean that’s the only way a carbon tax will be efficient,” Holmstead said.
The response to that statement from the Democratic side he said shocked him.
“I was astonished by the hostility to that idea,” Holmstead said. “Someone that you have all heard of, but I won’t mention, who is very involved in climate policy, said ‘we will never give up regulating CO2 through the Clean Air Act. We will never give that up,'” he said.
“I was surprised. And I talked about the shortcomings of the Clean Air Act when it came to reducing carbon emissions. And this person simply had faith” that regulating carbon pollution under the law eventually will pan out, as it has for normal pollution.
Because of that unwillingness to consider giving up a host of regulations, “I just think it’s politically unrealistic” to think a carbon tax will ever see the light of day, he said.
