With the Trump administration poised to roll back rules on smog and drilling off Alaska and the east coast, environmental campaigners are ready for legal action

'See you in court': activists ready for Trump to relax smog and drilling rules

Environmental campaigners promised on Saturday to wage fierce and protracted legal battles against “outrageous and wrong-headed” Trump administration moves to open Atlantic and Arctic waters for drilling and loosen smog limits.

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Such moves, which would be only the latest rollbacks of Obama-era environmental protections, were signalled by administration officials this week.

Donald Trump has already made sweeping efforts to boost fossil fuel industries and undo landmark efforts to combat the effects of climate change.

On Friday, attorneys for the government asked a federal court in Washington to delay a key case so the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could review its stance on rules capping smog pollution.

It also emerged that the day before, interior secretary Ryan Zinke told industry insiders that Trump plans overturn bans on drilling off Alaska and the Eastern Seaboard, while making new oil and gas exploitation rights available.

The case over smog limits was brought by a coalition of conservative states and business groups, led by the US Chamber of Commerce, and concerns limits imposed under President Obama in 2015.



“EPA intends to closely review the 2015 rule, and the prior positions taken by the agency with respect to the 2015 rule may not necessarily reflect its ultimate conclusions after that review is complete,” the attorneys wrote in their submission to the court of appeals for the District of Columbia.



The 2015 rule cut the amount of ozone allowed in the air at ground level from 75 parts per billion to 70, limiting one byproduct of pollutants from power plants and vehicle exhaust that is a major component of smog.

The rule has also been challenged by environmental groups, for being too lax.

The Trump administration has made no official indication of its position on the smog rule, so when justice department attorneys requested “adequate time to fully review” the government’s position, campaigners received a powerful signal.

“Smog is dangerous to kids, seniors and asthmatics,” said Seth Johnson, an attorney with environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, in a statement. “The Trump administration is taking the first step toward tearing down a crucial protection against dirty air.”

A statement from the group said the court filing was “likely an indication that the federal government will try to stop defending, or will weaken implementation of, the more protective smog standard set by the EPA in October 2015”.

Before the former Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt – who has questioned established climate science – was named to lead of the EPA, he was part of the coalition challenging the smog rule in court.

John Walke, clean air director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), this week accused Trump of “pushing baseless litigation mounted by Scott Pruitt before he was put in charge of the EPA over the consensus of doctors and scientists”.

In a flurry of statements released after Friday’s court filing, the NRDC and the Sierra Club also pointed out that smog pollution contributes to asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and other health problems, having a particular detriment in low-income communities.

Another executive order, directing the interior department to facilitate sales of new offshore oil and natural gas drilling rights in US Atlantic and Arctic waters, is expected within weeks or possibly days.



The audacious order, revealed in a Bloomberg report on Thursday, is expected to begin the process of revoking Obama’s decision in late 2016 to place a permanent ban on drilling in most US Arctic waters and off much of the Atlantic coast.

Obama maintained that his drilling ban and blocking of the sale of exploitation rights could withstand legal challenges from a future administration. It appears that the Trump administration is undeterred.

Zinke revealed the forthcoming order, with few details, in a presentation to the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) in Washington that was closed to press, according to a number of attendees.

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An executive order on 28 March, however, instructed the heads of all federal agencies to “review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions … that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources, with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy resources”.

David Doniger, NRDC director of climate and clean air programs, said on Saturday the likely forthcoming measures on air pollution and new offshore drilling were “deeply saddening.”

“It’s outrageous and wrong-headed,” he said.

All efforts to undo environmental protections put in place by Obama, he said, would face lengthy and compulsory processes of consultation and review, as well as the strongest possible legal challenges at every turn.

“It’s really waking people up,” he said.

Doniger added that Obama’s ban on new drilling in the Atlantic and the Arctic would be particularly difficult to overturn.

“See you in court,” he said.