Trump signs roll-back on Obama-era climate plans

World Today

President Donald Trump signs an Energy Independence Executive Order, Tuesday, March 28, 2017, at EPA headquarters in Washington. Trump signed an executive order aimed at moving forward on his campaign pledge to unravel former President Barack Obama’s plan to curb global warming. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Declaring “the start of a new era” in energy production, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that he said would revive the coal industry and create jobs.

The move makes good on his campaign pledge to unravel former President Barack Obama’s plan to curb global warming.

The order seeks to suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.

Environmental activists, including former Vice President Al Gore, denounced the plan.

But Trump said the effort would allow workers to “succeed on a level playing field for the first time in a long time.”

“That is what this is all about: bringing back our jobs, bringing back our dreams and making America wealthy again,” Trump said, during a ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters, attended by a number of coal miners.

In addition to pulling back from the Clean Power Plan, the administration will also lift a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.

Story by the Associated Press.