Trump Hands Major Victory to the Oil and Gas Industry, But Will It Survive in Court?
From the Los Angeles Times:
The new rule, from the Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department, will almost immediately be plunged into litigation as environmental groups and states with stricter standards, led by California, plan to challenge it.
“We intend to make sure the backsliding doesn’t reach California’s doorstep,” California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said Tuesday in announcing the state’s plan to go to court to defend its tougher standards.
If the administration’s policy survives those fights, it would spare automakers from having to meet ambitious gas mileage and emissions requirements put in place in 2012 under President Obama. It is among the biggest steps the administration has taken to reverse an existing environmental policy.
This illustrates two important facts about the Trump administration:
1) Most of the environmental damage that would result from Trump’s callous disregard for everyone and everything except his own enrichment hasn’t taken place and perhaps never will, because so much of it is in litigation, and
2) If he’s re-elected, all bets are off; four more years will be plenty of time to get all this adjudicated by a court system that has been aggressively stacked in favor of corporate interests. Many of these disastrous provisions will be implemented, unleashing a multi-pronged assault against our planet’s capacity to support life.
