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Clean Power Plan

The Clean Power Plan is an American climate change policy to combat global warming, under the administration of President Barack Obama, the Clean Power Plan was first proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency in June 2014.

The newest version of the Clean Power Plan is the first one to control a national limit on carbon dioxide emissions that are generated from power plants. The ultimate goal of the CPP would be to lower the amount of carbon dioxide from power generators.

The Clean Power Plan aims to promote the use of clean energy by setting nationwide standards for power plants and incentives for states to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions

Aims

The Clean Power Plan's final version aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 32 percent within twenty-five years relative to 2005 levels. The focus is on reducing emissions from power plants which burn coal. The Clean Power Plan also intends to promote the use of renewable energy and energy conservation. The Obama Administration also hoped that adopting the Clean Power Plan would persuade and promote other countries which emit a large amount of carbon dioxide emissions to reassess their pollution and officially pledge to reduce their emissions at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference

Requirements

The EPA divided the country into three regions based on connected regional electricity grids to determine a state's goal. States are to implement their plans by focusing on three building blocks: increasing the generation efficiency of existing fossil fuel plants, substituting lower carbon dioxide emitting natural gas generation for coal powered generation, and substituting generation from new zero carbon dioxide emitting renewable sources for fossil fuel powered generation.

States may use regionally available low carbon generation sources when substituting for in-state coal generation and coordinate with other states to develop multi-state plans.

The Clean Power Plan will require individual states to fulfill specific standards with respect to the main point of reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Under the Clean Power Plan, States have their own freedom to reduce air pollutants by various ways, but they must submit their own state emissions plans by September 2016 or with an approval of extension, September 2018. The EPA will configure its own plan if a state has not submitted a plan by the September 2018 deadline.

Court Challenge

Trump and how he wants to repeal

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-to-scrap-obama-climate-plan-costly-coal-rules/article/2616554

 Climate change

63 years of climate change by NASA

During the campaign, Trump expressed the view that global warming and cooling are a natural process. He often described global warming as a "hoax"; he sometimes attributed the hoax to the Chinese government, but later claimed that had been a joke.

Positions on global warming differ within the Trump administration. U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis has called climate change a true threat to national security and stability. EPA chief Scott Pruitt has said he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.

As a candidate Trump said he would rescind Obama's Climate Action Plan, cancel U.S. participation in the Paris Climate Agreement, and stop all U.S. payments into United Nations global warming programs. In March 2017, Trump signed an executive order to officially withdraw and rewrite Obama's Clean Power Plan in an effort to revive the coal mining industry. He has called Obama-era fuel standards a burden on the U.S. automotive industry and has instructed EPA administrator Pruitt to review them.

Trump is committed to the removal of regulations on industry that he deems an unnecessary burden on energy industries. Specifically, he cites the Obama Administration's Climate Action Plan as a priority among these regulations. The Climate Action Plan, issued in June 2013, outlines regulations to industry with the ultimate goal of cutting domestic carbon emission, preparing the U.S. for impending effects of climate change, and working internationally to address climate change. Among the regulations outlined in the plan are initiatives to increase natural disaster preparedness, create and improve existing hospitals, and modernize infrastructure to better withstand extreme weather.

Denial networks

United States

A study in 2008 from the University of Central Florida analyzed the sources of "environmentally skeptical" literature published in the United States. The analysis showed that 92% of the literature was partly or wholly affiliated with a self-proclaimed conservative think tank.

A Pentagon report has pointed out how climate denial threatens national security.

A study from 2015 identified 4,556 individuals with overlapping network ties to 164 organizations which are responsible for the most efforts to downplay the threat of climate change in the U.S.

A study was conducted to determine whether or not conservative white Americans were more likely to deny climate change. Researchers from Lyman Briggs College took samples of conservative white males of different understandings of global warming and categorized them separately. Categorized into three groups: conservative white males who claim to understand global warming, conservative white males who claim not to understand global warming, and other individuals. It was concluded that many of these conservative white males who self report understanding global warming believe that the mass media has over exaggerated the effects of global warming and climate change and that the effects of it have never happened. 48.4% of conservative white males who report understanding global warming very well in the study said that the effects of global warming will never happen compared to 19% who do not understand it very well and 7.4% of all other adults.  Many people appear to be confused by climate science however, the study showed that the people who self reported understanding global warming were most prone to denying.

Another study by Utah State University discusses geographic variation on climate change opinions at state and local scales in the United States.  It was noted that prior research was found that public climate change policy support and behavior are significantly influenced by public beliefs, attitudes and risk perceptions.  In addition, to complement previous stated factors, they’re also influenced by knowledge, emotion, ideology, demographics, and personal experience.  Where people live can account for some significance, since some people live in weather extreme areas, they could be desensitized to the overall change in climates as well. Surveys were conducted and showed that 63% of Americans believe that global warming is happening, 47% believe that it is human caused and 42% believe that most scientists think it is happening.  In the study, a model was constructed to determine the public opinion of climate change across the nation.   Representative telephone based surveys were used to investigate opinions in four states:  California, Texas, Ohio and Colorado in addition to the Columbus and San Francisco metropolitan areas.