Scott Airey

RCL2

OHara

4/9/17

One step forwards, Four steps back

In light of recent events there has been an event of dire consequences that if

left unchanged will surely be an agitating factor in the demise of our society. While

this event might not seem drastic enough to cause such destruction, the actions

that it clears the path for will. Donald J. Trumps most recent Presidential Executive

Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth is the abrupt halt

of the forward motion America was creating towards the innovation of Clean Energy.

This act directly forces the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review the

clean power plan, which was one of Obamas primary regulatory acts that was

enabled to decrease the greenhouse gas emissions from within the electric power

sector of America. Along with that review it reverses the brief moratorium on the

creation of coal-mining leases being granted on federal soil; It removes the

consideration of greenhouse gases on permit reviews under the National

Environmental Policy act; It formally abandons President Barack Obamas plan on

how to maintain and decrease the United States emissions; and eliminates a tool for

cost-benefit analysis in regulatory review towards carbon emissions. i In order to stop

the eminent disaster that will erupt from this act the people must unite towards the

betterment of our environment to allow a greener future. So, Mr. Toomey and Mr.
Casey Jr, I am writing this brief directly towards you and the public in order to help

you come to understand the impact of this act and hope that you will actively

advocate against it within Washington D.C. I have no strategy for amending or

changing this executive order as it is fundamentally wrong and there is not a single

part within it that deserves to stay as the law of the land. The only plausible course

of action is one of complete abolition. It must be reversed as soon as legally

possible in order to stop further detriment to the environment and our own society.

Our nations citizens must show corporations and businesses that the only

acceptable future for humanity is one co-existing with clean-energy production and

renewable resources. I will explain the impacts of this order and the change that it

will cause then directly compare it to the benefits that it will have, and the

overwhelming evidence will surely sway the opinions of you or your colleagues.

To start off, I will address the revocation of the moratorium on the leasing of

federal land towards coal mining. This revocation allows for the continuing of federal

lands to be sold for the purpose of being mined for coal. What this means is that at

some point federally owned state reserves (such as wildlife reserves or other

protected areas) may be at risk for being leased towards coal mining. ii While

intended to create coal mining jobs, (one of Trumps supporting groups that he

appealed directly towards) this act is just another step backwards. The coal mining

industry has been dying ever since the race towards Clean and Renewable energy

was initiated and this bill will do nothing that would reinvigorate the decreasing

market towards fossil fuels. The booming new industry involved with hydraulic-

fracturing (aka Fracking) has allowed for a surplus of natural gas to be extracted

from the ground in cleaner, more efficient ways which means that the labor-

intensive technique of coal-mining would have mediocre to little success in

 iii
comparison. If you consider the fact that a dying market is better than no market,

one might be able to weigh the benefit against the costs of coal-mining. Trump

widely boasted that he would bring back jobs to middle-class Americans within the

coal-mining industry. According to a recent Department of Energy Statistics review,

the number of coal-miners employed within the industry consisted of around sixty-

six thousand in 2015. This might seem worthwhile to bring back jobs to these

Americans until you compare it towards the estimated three million (and growing)

workers involved in the creation and industrialization of Clean Energy. Along with

the Clean Energy industry overshadowing any impact the coal mining industry

might have in the creation of jobs, the new mechanization techniques being created

would likely lead to even less employment rates among coal miners as most manual

labor jobs are being replaced by simple machines that work faster and more

efficiently for less cost. This act does not produce net jobs, and it could even cause

a net decrease in job production in the future. With less interest in innovative

technologies (such as wind, solar, nuclear) and more focus on fossil fuels (which we

already established is a dying industry due to new energy methods), this act is

essentially hurting job growth in all of the booming new industries. i By attempting

to revitalize the coal industry with this act, it will only hurt our economy as it does

not produce long-term jobs and hurts any future job production in vital areas of

growing industry.

To address the dismantling of the CPP (Clean Power Plan), Trump is seemingly

instructing agencies not to consider the climate ramifications of federal projects on

the emissions of greenhouse gases into our environment. iI What this really means is

that the United States would be put on a higher pollution and higher emissions track

towards the future, meaning a less environmentally-friendly outlook for the United
States. The CPP set in place through Obamas administration aimed for a rough 32%

decrease in CO2 emissions from the power sector by 2030, mostly by shifting away

from fossil-fueled energy sources (coal). By allowing the production of more CO2 or

greenhouse gas emissions within America will also directly go against the Paris

Energy Summit directive towards reducing greenhouse gases, but does not strictly

violate the agreement but rather makes it harder or almost impossible to keep our

agreement in the future iii . The implications of rolling back the CPP in a global

political environment would mean that other big emitters (like china, EU, India, etc.)

would be aware of the change in stance by the USA and consider changing their

own goals towards a more environmentally friendly future. This act represents a

global set backwards in the fight against climate change, and would lead way for

other countries to become leaders in the Clean-Energy industry. i Aside from the

geopolitical aspects, the average citizen will be affected by CO2 Emissions directly.

The direct results of CO2 emissions is Climate change. Here is an infographic

provided by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) on their study of

Climate Change showing the direct impact of the industrial revolution on the
amount of greenhouse emissions within the atmosphere.
Quite obviously from this simple infographic one can see the direct change caused

by humanities own impact. The implications of increased CO2 levels on the Climate

mean the increased temperature of the oceans, which directly affects all of our

ecosystems. From the rising of rising of sea level globally (from the increase in

temperature affecting the polar ice caps) to the acidification of the ocean (caused

directly by the emissions of Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) iv . There is a

plethora of increasingly worse consequences that the emission of CO2 into our

atmosphere will cause, and the complete ignorance by our own government is only

hurting the citizens of our great nation. While economic success is a valid reason to

ignore significant guidelines, the nature of climate change would lead to a fruitless

exploitation of our environment that only causes the downfall of infrastructure.

Climate change is not an issue to be casually disregarded, and that is exactly what

this act is attempting to do. As a citizen of this great country, and one of the world, I

hope that you can help fight towards a cleaner future by re-establishing the CO2

emission guidelines destroyed by this act.

Addressing the elimination of the social cost of carbon in regulatory reviews and

cost-benefit analysis, its simply just irrational. This social cost of carbon was

developed as a multi-agency task force during the Obama administration as a way

to monetize the impacts of climate change on the future economy. Basically, this

review would enable companies to claim that their actions against the environment

provided such a monetary gain as to be worth the consequences, and provisions

would be allowed if such requirements were met. With the removal of this review,

the Trump administration is essentially ignoring the future effects of climate change

on our infrastructure and environment. In a recent study by the EPA, the agency

warned against the costs of Climate change on the United States own economy,
suggesting that by enacting and enforcing Climate Policy the United States could

save up to 200 billion by 2100 v. Here is an estimation of the coastal sea level

damage that would be caused after the glacial ice of Greenland melted.

vi

Some, if not all of these regions in red would be completely destroyed by the

extreme flooding and this insane amount of infrastructural damage would cost the

United States an unreal amount of money (much higher than any estimate) due to

the simple severity of the flooding. With the known fact that CO2 emissions cause

an increase in global temperature, and the known fact that ice melts when it gets

warmer, how can any sane person ignore the social cost of carbon? It is not

plausible that our government can accept and create a standard for the cost of
carbon then completely ignore its existence due to an executive order, as the

problem has not gone away. It is up to you Senators and the American public to

establish the cost of carbon within regulatory reform once again, or the United

States is surely on a track towards a darker future.

All of these reforms that Trumps executive order have hinted towards show a

significant attempt at changing the direction of energy production within the United

States from a cleaner, more efficient supply backwards towards the industrial ages

barbaric techniques. While using coal might be financially easier than improving

our clean-energy techniques, the future benefit of using clean-energy would easily

outweigh the costs of such measures. Clean energy technologies started off

extremely expensive, but with further research and application the price has

become rapidly cheaper over time. To emphasize this point, Fossil fuels are the past

while Clean-energy techniques are the future. Why is our own government trying to

retreat backwards in scientific advancement rather than forwards? Electricity

production accounts for more than one-third of United States global warming

emissions, while the majority is generated by coal-fired power plants (which

produce around 25% of total United States emissions), and a miniscule 6% of total

United States global emissions are made by natural-gas power plants. Further

investigation into the production of Carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hours (CO2/kWh)

shows that natural gas produces 0.6-2.0 lbs./hr. compared to coal which produces

1.4-3.6lbs/hr. Meanwhile, other methods such as wind power, solar power,

geothermal power, and hydroelectric power all produce varying outputs of .02 to .5,
vii
which is lower than the least amount produced by natural gas. It is a widely

known fact that carbon dioxide emissions are bad for human health, but how does

that translate into tax-dollars? According to the Economic Value of U.S. fossil fuel
electricity health impacts article in the Environment International scientific journal,

replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy has been found to reduce premature

death, sick workdays, and overall just reducing health care costs. The national

economic impact caused by the health impacts of continuing to emit carbon dioxide

and other fossil fuels into the atmosphere varies from $361.7 billion and $886.5

billion every year, which is 2.5-6.0 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of
viii
the United States of America. In the past eight years, wind power costs have

dropped by around 40%, while solar power costs have dropped an even higher 60%,

and an even higher LED lights have dropped 90% in production costs. So, what is

the fundamental issue with switching from fossil-fuels to Clean-Energy techniques?

As we all citizens of this nation and breathe the same air, it would be ludicrous to

not see the economic and health-related benefits of switching to Clean-Energy

rather than trying to revamp an outdated dying industry that can only cause harm.

So once again, with all this knowledge states clearly and efficiently, why is the

President of the United States passing executive orders that fundamentally go

against Americas core values of innovation and forward change? This executive

order must be revoked and the actions Ive talked about in earlier sections of this

brief must be immediately overturned in order to continue the American dream.

Any objections to this brief are likely uneducated and ungrounded as there is little

benefit in the enactment of this executive order. The jobs created by this are

miniscule compared to the jobs created by Clean Energy, and the only economic

gain is short-lived compared to the long term gain provided through innovation and

exploration of new techniques. Coal is not as effective proven by the CO2/kWh

comparisons where coal is outshined by natural resources all the time. The omitting

of the Social Cost of Carbon from regulatory reviews is strictly un-ethical as

ignoring a problem that the Obama administration identified does not fix the issue

behind it. By removing the considerations of greenhouse gases from permit reviews

only allows for corporations and industries to further pollute the environment

leading to Climate Changes detrimental effects. The only advantage that this bill

provides is for companies to further pollute the environment for minimal economic

gain, and to appease an extremely small part of Trumps voter base.

Now the feasibility of revoking President Trumps executive orders is much

more cumbersome. While it is clear that little to no benefit will come from this order

and the costs of ignoring and agitating Climate change are extremely high, its

simply just an illogical order not an illegal one. Congress can theoretically address

Trumps executive orders with legislative arguments, but it is extremely unlikely that

a Republican-controlled congress will enact any formal review. That is why it is upon

the general population and you, Senator Toomey and Senator Casey JR, to

understand the dire consequences of inaction about this executive order. We must

remove it as soon as possible. Addressing the average everyday citizen, I encourage

you to be vocal about your own opinion, write strongly worded letters to your

representatives, be engaged in your community, go start a peaceful public protest,

trend a tag on twitter, just advocate for what you believe in! I hope that this brief

has consolidated your opinion onto the fact that this Executive Order on Promoting

Energy Independence and Economic Growth has only disadvantages and must be

revoked as soon as possible.

i Hultman, Nathan. "Trump's executive order on energy independence | Brookings
Institution." Brookings. Brookings, 28 Mar. 2017. Web. 10 Apr. 2017.

ii Hammond, Emily. "President Trump's executive order on "energy independence,"

annotated by an environmental law expert." Vox.com. N.p., 29 Mar. 2017. Web. 10 Apr.
2017.

iii Carl, Jeremy. "What President Trump's Energy and Climate Executive Order Does - and
Doesn't Do." National Review. N.p., 31 Mar. 2017. Web. 10 Apr. 2017

iv "Evidence of Climate Change." Nasa.gov. NASA, n.d. Web.

v Davenport, Coral. "E.P.A. Warns of High Cost of Climate Change." The New York Times.
The New York Times, 22 June 2015. Web. 10 Apr. 2017.

vi "Coastal Sea level Rising." NASA. NASA, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2017.

vii "Benefits of Renewable Energy Use." Union of Concerned Scientists. N.p., n.d. Web. 10
Apr. 2017.

viii Machol, Rizk. 2013. Economic value of U.S. fossil fuel electricity health impacts.
Environment International 52 7580.