President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order dismantling the previous administration’s climate legacy, according to Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.
Inhofe told The Daily Signal that Trump will eradicate the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan next week.
“What you’re going to see next week is he’s going to take this power plan that we know isn’t going to work anyway and he’s going to run that over,” Inhofe said.
The 2015 Clean Power Plan is a set of regulations on new and existing power plants that forces states to meet targets, established by the EPA, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Inhofe said former President Barack Obama’s plan was a “dismal failure.”
“Now, Obama said we will reduce [carbon dioxide] emissions by 27 percent by 2025,” Inhofe said. “We immediately, cause I was chairing the committee, had the EPA come in to say, ‘How is he going to do that?’ Well, he couldn’t do it, so obviously that wasn’t going to happen.”
Instead of passing legislation, Obama acted through regulation, Inhofe said.
“The things he couldn’t do through legislation, he’d do through regulation,” he said. “That’s where all the regulations came in.”
In the blueprint for his budget, Trump will cut 3,200 jobs from the EPA, slashing the agency by 31 percent. Under the blueprint, the agency’s budget will be reduced from $8.3 billion to $5.7 billion.
Inhofe admitted that he was not originally a Trump supporter, but is pleased with what he has seen so far.
“[Trump] was not my choice, but once I met him, wham, I thought this guy really means it,” he said. “The things he says that sound so stupid, end up being well thought out and this guy is getting things done and of course he’s the president of the United States, so you can sit around and criticize him, but it worked.”
According to Inhofe, some of the most important rules Trump is eradicating are the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the United States rules.
“He’s doing them all one at a time and people who say he’s not doing things fast enough, boy I don’t know,” Inhofe said. “The guy doesn’t sleep.”
