Giving Compass' Take:

· Daniel Fiorino at The Conversation discusses President Trump's new coal plan, The Affordable Clean Energy proposal, and how it will affect the environment and economy.

· Would The Affordable Clean Energy proposal help the environment? 

· Read about Donald Trump’s plan to bring back coal jobs.

Is climate change a problem? Consider the evidence: wildfires in California, Sweden and Siberia; flooding in coastal areas due to sea level rise; droughts in some places and extreme weather and rainfall in others; new and emerging patterns of disease; heat waves; and much more. Yet, looking at the policy changes announced in the last 17 months by the Trump administration, one would think there is no such thing as climate change.

This week the Trump administration proposed a rule for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal-fired electrical generating plants, fulfilling a promise to replace an Obama-era plan to cut emissions from coal plants by one-third between now and 2030.

The Affordable Clean Energy proposal does not disappoint coal executives: It lays out what the EPA appears to view as the minimum needed to meet statutory obligations set out in the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that the EPA should regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act if carbon dioxide endangered public health and welfare.

Beyond attempting to meet the letter of the law as obligated by the Supreme Court, I see the Affordable Clean Energy plan as a regulatory attempt to keep the coal industry alive, despite its poor prospects, and not as a serious effort to deal with the effects of coal-fired power plants on the climate and public health.

Read the full article about Trump's coal plan by Daniel Fiorino at The Conversation.