Dismantling Climate Rules Isnt So Easy.

[elleng]

'Donald J. Trump has named Scott Pruitt, a leading opponent of President Obama’s signature environmental initiatives, as his nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general, is closely linked to fossil fuel industries and is a climate change skeptic. He was most likely chosen to reverse these environmental initiatives, a deeply disturbing turn in the nation’s effort to slow climate change.

Fortunately, law and reality constrain presidents and agency heads. So do deeply ingrained federalism traditions that leave room for state leadership on the environment. Collectively, law, reality and regulatory choices by states would create a bulwark against abrupt changes by Mr. Pruitt and the president. Wholesale regulatory rollbacks by presidential fiat are difficult to accomplish. Radical change would probably require Congress to amend long-enduring environmental statutes. . .

An E.P.A. led by an anti-regulatory zealot will benefit from deference from the courts, especially when he slows new initiatives, adopts lax enforcement policies, engages in collusive settlements or proposes reconsideration of past actions. Foot-dragging is hard to remedy. However, science, data, statutory requirements, Supreme Court precedents, existing regulations, state progress and the huge clean energy industrial sector will constrain regulatory rollbacks or the wholesale loss of progress to slow climate change. Under the Constitution and rule of law, change by presidential fiat is not an option.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/opinion/dismantling-climate-rules-isnt-so-easy.html?

[Blue Shoes]

1. This article has a bunch of wishful thinking.

Radical change would probably require Congress to amend long-enduring environmental statutes

Well they do control congress.

statutory requirements, Supreme Court precedents, existing regulations

They're also going to control the courts.

state progress and the huge clean energy industrial sector will constrain regulatory rollbacks or the wholesale loss of progress to slow climate change.

The clean energy sector is fledgling at best; it exists because of regulation and subsidies. While its progressing at a fair pace it is still too expensive to be widely implemented if those subsidies were to be cut. Furthermore, if coal and gas are subsidized and the price on energy from those sources drop, it'll suffocate the entire industry here. Implementation would be done purely from a ideological and future oriented standpoint; not an economical one (read: it won't happen).