Trump Gives Us The Coaled Shoulder

EPA chief Scott Pruitt came to Kentucky yesterday to make an announcement with Mitch the Turtle that the "war on coal" has been won, and that all of America will lose as a result.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told coal miners in Kentucky Monday he will move to repeal a rule limiting greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, assuring them, “The war against coal is over.” 

Speaking at an event in Hazard, Ky. with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Pruitt said his agency will publish the new proposed rule on Tuesday.

“[Tuesday], in Washington D.C., I’ll be a signing a proposed rule to withdraw the so-called Clean Power Plan of the past administration, and thus begin the effort to withdraw that rule,” Pruitt said. 

The proposal, which was obtained by The Washington Post and other news outlets last week, argues that the agency overstepped its legal authority in seeking to force utilities to reduce carbon emissions outside their actual facilities to meet federal emissions targets.

There are of course no plans to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan with, well, anything at this point, and Scott Pruitt's job is to make sure that will never happen.

Of course here in coal country those jobs aren't ever coming back and in fact since Trump took office the state has lost another 300 mining and logging jobs and is below 10,000 of them total, but hey, who's counting?

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of additional respiratory deaths will occur over the next ten years as a result if the plan is scrapped and that will result in billions in health care expenses but that doesn't exactly seem to be an issue with the Trump Regime.  Dead people don't vote, after all.