The Trump administration dealt former President Barack Obama’s signature climate policy a death blow on Wednesday, finalizing its proposal to replace sweeping curbs on power station emissions with a lax mandate to upgrade equipment at old plants.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Affordable Clean Energy, or ACE, rule grants states leeway to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and requires coal-fired power plants to install only modest on-site retrofits to pare down planet-warming pollution.

At a press conference, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, until two years ago a coal lobbyist, made clear the new rule aimed to bolster the struggling coal industry. At one point, Wheeler even quoted the chief executive of oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. arguing that renewable energy is insufficient to deliver reliable electricity.

“We can’t deny the fact that fossil fuels will continue to be part of the energy mix at home and abroad,” Wheeler said. “The contrast between our approach and the Green New Deal and other plans like it couldn’t be clearer.”

The U.S. power sector is on track to cut carbon dioxide more than the 32% below 2005 levels the Clean Power Plan projected by 2030 as renewables, bolstered by state-level climate policies, continue growing at a steady pace. But environmentalists dubbed the ACE rule the “Dirty Power Plan,” decrying its narrowed scope and lack of ambition as suicidal backward steps in the midst of a rapidly worsening climate crisis.

“With this rule, EPA does virtually nothing to address its obligation to regulate carbon dioxide and confirms its support of the coal industry at the expense of our health and our children’s future,” Gina McCarthy, the former EPA administrator during Obama’s second term, said in a statement.

The proposal, which already faces impending lawsuits from the attorneys general of such as states as New York and Massachusetts, essentially completes President Donald Trump’s quashing of a rule Republicans blamed for strangling the coal industry, and ramps up his administration’s assault on federal regulations aimed at curbing emissions.

Speaking at the event on Wednesday morning, Republican congressmen from coal-producing states, including Reps. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) and Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.), skewered the Clean Power Plan as a “coal killing” bid to illegally expand the federal government’s powers. The congressmen called its replacement a “commonsense approach” that promised real environmental progress. It was a curious claim from politicians who have long rejected the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change, but hardly the most specious. White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney at one point falsely claimed U.S. emissions were steady or declining, despite a sharp spike last year.

The rollback comes as the White House is making a haphazard attempt to unravel Obama-era fuel economy standards. It’s part of a broader deregulatory sweep in which the administration is trying to eliminate or delayat least 83 environmental regulations, particularly rules to reduce greenhouse gases.