Maureen Groppe

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Janet McCabe spent years developing the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s strategy to reduce greenhouse gases and slow climate change.

So when President Trump this week started efforts to roll back that work, McCabe called it “quite a kick in the stomach.”

McCabe, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency office that wrote the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, talked about the expansive executive order Trump signed, which included directing a rewrite of the Clean Power Plan rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Is this what you were expecting to happen after Trump won the election?

Yes. President Trump had made it pretty clear that he was headed in this direction. I’m not sure I was anticipating quite the breadth of this order. He seems to have covered pretty much every single thing.

So it’s worse than you expected?

It’s really distressing to see the choice to just completely disregard the impacts of climate. And also to seemingly completely disregard the cost and benefits associated with the programs that have been started.

We didn’t do these programs for fun. We did them because science was showing that there was air pollution, which was causing public health threats and would be doing so even more in the future. And that there costs associated with that. And that there were benefits associated with finding ways to reasonably minimize, reduce and put ourselves on a transition to cleaner energy.

None of that is reflected in the decision today.

How difficult will it be for the administration to argue the science is showing something different and undo the Clean Power Plan?

They’re going to have to build a record for whatever outcome they ultimately decide. The record on the science side is pretty robust and compelling. It’s hard for me to see how they’re going to be able to come out with a different conclusion in terms of the public health and environmental threats of carbon and other greenhouse gas pollution.

Even if the Trump administration isn’t ultimately able to overturn the Clean Power Plan, can they delay it?

The rule is already stayed (by the U.S. Supreme Court while the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit considers a legal challenge). It’s not being implemented now. It does appear that the utility industry, nevertheless ... are continuing to move forward. They have to make very long-term investment decisions and they are doing it with climate in mind.

We know that (carbon dioxide) emissions are going down. We know that there are several states where (carbon dioxide) emissions from power plants already meet the 2022 target that was established in the Clean Power Plan. So I’m hopeful, that despite this action today, that there in fact won’t be that much of an impact on the direction that the industry is moving in, which is toward a cleaner energy system.

Do you expect the D.C. Circuit of Appeals to still issue a decision? Or will the Trump administration encourage the court to hold off?

If they do, I don’t know how the court is going to react. They’ve had it for a long time. And there are some basic, fundamental legal issues that it would be useful to have the court’s decision on.

You’ve heard today in the announcement, and we’ve seen the references to illegal rules (issued by the Obama administration). Well, it’s in court now. We have a court getting ready to tell us whether the rule was consistent with the Clean Air Act. I think there’s some value in getting those answers.

The Trump administration also wants to cut EPA’s budget by 30% or more. What effect would that have?

The budget cuts are just devastating. There’s really no way to say that this is a budget that will protect the public health of this country and implement and enforce the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. They just won’t be able to do it.

The budget proposes cutting the state grants as well. So the statement that we want to turn the power back to the states is kind of hollow if they’re going to be getting less resources from the federal government to do that work.

You knew the Clean Power Plan was going to be controversial and the subject of litigation, so in some ways is this latest action not surprising?

We knew that there would be litigation and that it would take a while … .

One of the things that the Clean Power Plan did was something the utilities have always asked for, which is give us certainty. Tell us what the target is with enough time to get there and then don’t change the rules. We laid that out pretty well for them.

The situation we’re in now is going to lead to several more years of uncertainty and potentially lost opportunity. And, of course, how this is going to reflect on the United States internationally, which is very disturbing.

How optimistic are you that the Clean Power Plan will stay intact and eventually be enforced?

Even if the Clean Power Plan were upheld by the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court, a new administration is always entitled to reconsider a rule and do another rule. They have to do it in a way that’s consistent with the law … and there will be tests all along the way by people participating in the process and then, presumably, the courts. I don’t want to predict the future that might be many years out.

But I do feel, even with the discouraging messages from (Tuesday), a level of optimism that just because you say climate is not something we should be considering, (and say) it’s not the kind of threat that should be the kind of priority that President Obama made it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t. It’s science. It’s fact. And many, many people know that, not just scientists, but people in business, people in state policy jobs, and I think that work will continue.

Read more:

How Trump's energy order affects jobs, fuel prices

Here are 10 Obama environmental policies Trump wants to scrap

The 62 agencies and programs Trump wants to eliminate