EPA

President Trump will sign an executive order this week to undo President Obama’s 2015 clean-power plan, EPA secretary Scott Pruitt revealed in an interview with ABC’s This Week. The plan was designed to reduce carbon emissions in the U.S. by 30 percent from 2005 levels before 2030, in part by targeting carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

President Trump’s budget slashes all funding to the Chesapeake Bay cleanup program, but environmental activists and bipartisan supporters of the program say they are prepared for a sustained fight with the President, says The Washington Post.

A key EPA official who played a role in deciding the government’s cancer designation on Roundup, Monsanto’s weedkiller, was routinely communicating with company officials, according to federal court documents unsealed Tuesday. The official reportedly told the company that he could kill another agency’s investigation into glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.

During an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" program, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said: "No, I would not agree that it (carbon dioxide) is a primary contributor to global warming." The statement was at odds with U.S. scientific agencies, who say the planet's average surface temperature is 2 degrees F higher than in the late 1800s and due largely to increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other human-caused emissions.

After waiting for nearly 10 months for EPA to reply to its public-records request, the consumer group U.S. Right to Know filed suit in federal court for access to agency documents involved in deciding the cancer risk of glyphosate, the most widely used weedkiller in the world. The WHO cancer agency determined the herbicide is "probably carcinogenic to humans" in 2015 but an EPA review committee in 2016 decided glyphosate is "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans" at doses relevant to human health risk assessment.

EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who gives little credence to man-made climate change, is packing his agency with other climate skeptics, says The New York Times. “Mr. Pruitt has drawn heavily from the staff of his friend and fellow Oklahoma Republican, Senator James Inhofe, long known as Congress’s most prominent skeptic of climate science,” says the Times.

The EPA overstepped with its Waters of the United States rule, said leaders of the National Corn Growers Association, who are happy the Trump administration will withdraw it. At the Commodity Classic, NCGA chairman Chip Bowling said, "[W]e do know we need to have some regulation and this group will be front and center when that time comes," reported DTN.

The Trump Administration budget calls for cutting EPA jobs by one fifth — from 15,000 to 12,000 — and slicing the agency’s annual budget from $8.2 billion a year to $6.1 billion, says The Washington Post.

As promised by EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, the administration immediately began work to replace the Waters of the United States rule that was a target of President Trump's campaign. On the same day that Trump signed an executive order to roll back WOTUS, Pruitt signed a Federal Register notice of "intention to review and rescind or revise" WOTUS.

The new head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week that the agency’s critics are “justified” in wanting to disband it, said The Guardian. “People across the country look at the EPA at the way they look at [the Internal Revenue Service]. We want to change that. There are a lot of changes that need to take place at my agency to restore the rule of law and federalism,” said Pruitt, blaming the EPA under Obama for “regulatory

Confirmed by a 52-48 Senate roll call, Scott Pruitt begins his first workday as EPA administrator today with plans to address agency employees at midday. As attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt sued the EPA 14 times and was a leading opponent of its Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, a regulation that is reviled by farm groups who want to see it ditched.

With Democrats boycotting the committee for the second day in a row, the Republican majority on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved, 11-0, the nomination of Scott Pruitt to be EPA administrator. The nomination was sent to the Senate for a floor vote after Republicans suspended rules that require the presence of two minority-party members to conduct business.

Chairman John Barrasso called it "political theater," but Democratic members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee prevented a vote on EPA nominee Scott Pruitt by boycotting a committee meeting. Barrasso said he would meet with the senior Democrat on the panel, Tom Carper, to find a way to move the nomination forward, said The Hill newspaper.