President Trump announced today that the 'War on Coal' was over, signing an executive order rolling back Obama-era regulations that curbed U.S. carbon emissions.

'This is what this is all about,' Trump said today at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters. 'Bringing back our jobs, bringing back our dreams and making America wealthy again.'

'We love our coal miners!' the president exclaimed.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence – who stood alongside EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Energy Secretary Rick Perry – spoke about the plight of the coal miners, some of whom were invited today to be part of the signing ceremony.

'I guess they like what we're about to sign,' Trump said, when he received elongated applause upon entering the EPA's Map Room. 'I knew they were going to like this one,' the president chuckled.

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President Donald Trump visited the Environmental Protection Agency and flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt spoke about Obama-era regulations that he was about to scrap

President Donald Trump signed an 'energy independence' executive order eliminating Obama-era climate change regulations

President Donald Trump received a warm welcome at the EPA, as the administration invited a number of coal miners to be part of the audience today

As part of the roll-back, Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants.

The regulation, which was the former president's signature effort to curb carbon emissions, has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and those who profit from burning oil, coal and gas.

Trump, who has called global warming a 'hoax' invented by the Chinese, has repeatedly criticized the power-plant rule and others as an attack on American workers and the struggling US coal industry.

He and members of his administration again articulated that charge today.

'You know our nation can't run on pixie dust and hope and the last eight years showed that,' said Zinke, during his opening remarks.

Perry said the government reforms would ensure clean water and air, but also allow for greater energy independence and a boost in American jobs.

Trump repeated that point saying, 'We're going to have safety, we're going to have clean water, we're going to have clean air, but so many [regulations] are unnecessary and so many are job-killing.'

'We're getting rid of the bad ones,' the president said.

The contents of the order were outlined to reporters in a sometimes-tense briefing with a senior White House official, whom aides insisted speak without attribution, despite President Trump's criticism of the use of unnamed sources.

The official at one point appeared to break with mainstream climate science, denying familiarity with widely publicized concerns about the potential adverse economic impacts of climate change, such as rising sea levels and more extreme weather.

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.

As part of the roll-back, Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants, similar to this one in Germany

The Obama administration had imposed a three-year moratorium on new federal coal leases in January 2016, arguing that the $1billion-a-year program must be modernized to ensure a fair financial return to taxpayers and address climate change.

Trump accused his predecessor of waging a 'War on Coal' and boasted in a speech to Congress that he has made 'a historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations,' including some that threaten 'the future and livelihoods of our great coal miners'.

Today at the EPA, the president talked about the conversations he had on the campaign trail with miners, who he said felt their jobs were under attack.

He said he asked them why not pick a job in a different field and relocate, but that the miners wanted to stay put and keep their jobs in the coal industry.

'If that's what you want to do, then that's what you're going to do,' Trump said, with miners lined up next to him onstage, around the small table where he would sign the order.

'I grew up in a real estate family and until this recent little excursion into the world of politics I could never understand why anybody would not want to be in the world of real estate, believe me,' he said. 'So I understand it.'

'We will put our miners back to work,' the president pledged.

On the topic of jobs, Trump also segued to Ford's announcement that the company would expand three facilities in Michigan.

He pivoted from that to once again relishing his campaign win.

'That was an exciting Michigan evening!' Trump said.

The order will also chip away at other regulations, including scrapping language on the 'social cost' of greenhouse gases.

It will initiate a review of efforts to reduce the emission of methane in oil and natural gas production as well as a Bureau of Land Management hydraulic fracturing rule, to determine whether those reflect the president's policy priorities.

It will also rescind Obama-era executive orders and memoranda, including one that addressed climate change and national security and one that sought to prepare the country for the impacts of climate change.

The White House budget calls for defunding the Clean Power Plan that Obama announced in 2015. Here EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt address employees at the agency's headquarters

Emissions rise from the American Electric Power Co Inc coal-fired John E Amos Power Plant in Winfield, West Virginia, in 2014. Power plant coal burning by 2020 must decline by 24 per cent

Trump said the orders would help to ‘unlock job-producing’ natural gas, including oil and shale energy.

‘We will transport American energy through American pipelines made with American steel. Made with American steel. Can you believe somebody would actually say that?’ Trump asked.

The president claimed on Tuesday that that issue ‘came up a little bit coincidentally’ as he was signing executive orders in January expediting the approval process for two multinational pipelines, Dakota Access and Keystone XL.

He was nearly finished approving the orders, he said, ‘And I said folks, where we do we get the steel, and they said, “I think it’s from foreign lands.” I said no good.’

Trump says he told his aides, ‘no more, no more.’

‘So we added a little clause, didn't take much. You want to build pipelines country in this country? You're gonna buy your steal and have it fabricated here. Makes sense doesn't it make sense?’

The president did not disclose at the time of the signing or in his remarks today that the only pipeline his administration has approved, Keystone XL, would not be made with US steel. Keystone will be grandfathered into the old rules.

The administration is still in discussion about whether it intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change. But the moves to be announced Tuesday will undoubtedly make it more difficult for the US to achieve its goals.

Pruitt alarmed environmental groups and scientists earlier this month when he said he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.

The statement is at odds with mainstream scientific consensus and Pruitt's own agency.

The overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed studies and climate scientists agree the planet is warming, mostly due to man-made sources, including carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons and nitrogen oxide.

The official who briefed reporters said the president does believe in man-made climate change.

''I guess the key question is to what extent, over what period of time. Those are the big questions that I think still we need to answer,' the White House official said.

The power-plant rule Trump addressed in his order has been on hold since last year as a federal appeals court considers a challenge by coal-friendly states and more than 100 companies who call the plan an unconstitutional power grab.

Opponents say the plan will kill coal-mining jobs and drive up electricity costs.

Renewable energy - including wind, solar and biofuels - now accounts for more than 650,000 US jobs

The Obama administration, some Democratic-led states and environmental groups countered that it will spur thousands of clean-energy jobs and help the US meet ambitious goals to reduce carbon pollution set by the international agreement signed in Paris.

Trump's order on coal-fired power plants follows an executive order he signed last month mandating a review of an Obama-era rule aimed at protecting small streams and wetlands from development and pollution.

The order instructs the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to review a rule that redefined 'waters of the United States' protected under the Clean Water Act to include smaller creeks and wetlands.

While Republicans have blamed Obama-era environmental regulations for the loss of coal jobs, federal data shows that US mines have been shedding jobs for decades under presidents from both parties as a result of increasing automation and competition from cheaper natural gas.

Another factor is the plummeting cost of solar panels and wind turbines, which now can produce emissions-free electricity cheaper than burning coal.

Thomas J Donohue (pictured), US Chamber of Commerce president, praised Trump for taking 'bold steps to make regulatory relief and energy security a top priority'

President Obama's White House photographer Pete Souza threw some shade President Trump's way, by posting a photo to Instagram showing his ex-boss in Alaska 'where climate change is not a hoax'

According to an Energy Department analysis released in January, coal mining now accounts for fewer than 70,000 US jobs.

By contrast, renewable energy – including wind, solar and biofuels – now accounts for more than 650,000 US jobs.

The Trump administration's plans drew praise from business groups and condemnation from environmental groups.

US Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J Donohue praised Trump for taking 'bold steps to make regulatory relief and energy security a top priority'.

'These executive actions are a welcome departure from the previous administration's strategy of making energy more expensive through costly, job-killing regulations that choked our economy,' Donohue said.

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy accused the Trump administration of wanting 'us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future'.

'This is not just dangerous; it's embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth and US leadership,' McCarthy said in a statement.

In advance of the executive order signing, President Obama's White House photographer Pete Souza posted a photo of the ex-commander-in-chief surveying the coast of Alaska, 'where climate change is not a hoax,' Souza wrote.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who met with Trump at Trump Tower during the transition, called the president's move today a 'misguided step away from a sustainable, carbon-free future for ourselves and generations to come.'

Gore called on the U.S. to continue to be a leader in the climate change fight, saying it's an imperative for both the environment and the economy.

'No matter how discouraging this executive order may be, we must, we can and we will solve the climate crisis,' Gore said. 'No one man or one group can stop the encouraging and escalating momentum we are experiencing in fight to protect our planet.'