Tell us what the Clean Power Plan was all about. Sure. So the Clean Power Plan was aimed at controlling Greenhouse Gas emissions from the power sector which is the second largest source of Greenhouse Gases currently in the u. S. And it took systemic approach to cutting emissions, so power plants around the country had a range of options they could use. Strategies like increasing efficiency or they could switch which kind of fuel they were using, for example, switching from goal to natural gas or they could also do emissions trading so they could use credits to koubt counteract any coal consumption. So the plan was well under way because it was announced by the president , the epa in august of 2015, and this week the administration, epa, announcing new rule, overriding the Clean Power Plan, the Affordable Clean Energy rule. Tell us about that. What do they propose . Sure. So this is a much more narrow rule than what the Obama Administration proposed. Instead of this broad menu of options for how power plants could cut emissions, it focuses only on the efficiency piece. So power plants can make efficien efficiency improvements at the facility level. Thats pretty much it. The law that governs Environmental Standards for air standards for the u. S. , is the 1970 Clean Air Act passed in 1970. Revisions made in 1977 and 1990. This is the law that requires congress, requires the epa, to establish National Ambient air quality standards for certain common pollutants. So in both the Obama Administration and now in the Trump Administration, they have made these rulings. What can congress do in the what does congress have to take a role in terms of codifying these rules into permanent law . Well, once this now that this rule is finalized, the next step will be litigation. So well see how the courts decide to handle this. Congress could separately decide to pass legislation to establish specific Greenhouse Gas controls on pow eer plants but that woul be a bit of an alternative pathway. In terms of the 2015 ruling that the Clean Power Plan that the Obama Administration announced, how far along were power plants across the country in terms of adapting to that rule . Well, it depended on where you were in the country how far along the plans were. I wasnt covering the Clean Power Plan at the time, so im a little bit fuzzy on the details of exactly where the implementation was for different areas but i will say that the rule never went into effect. It was stayed by the supreme court. And so theres limits to what had already happened before it was halted. What is the most notable change with the new the new Trump Administration rule, the a. C. E. , the Affordable Clean Energy rule, whats the most notable change that power plant operators will be faced with or decision to make . Sure. So the most notable change is this focus only on efficiency improvements for power plants. And that is something that environmental groups are concerned about because they dont see this as creating a lot of emissions reductions, which is incredibly necessary when the power sector is such a large source of emissions. Another thing that the rule does, it also takes a narrow reading of how epa should interpret the section of the Clean Air Act that the rule was written under, so its saying basically, epa should offer a menu of options to states of how they should comply with a specific rule. States will then come up with their own plans and then epa will review and approve or deny nose plans. This is in contrast to what the Clean Power Plan did which was to take a much more broad reading, i suppose, of the Clean Air Act, and this is really sort of refuting that reading by the Obama Administration of the niina farah is our guest. She writes for e e news. She covers regulations at federal agencies. Covering the issue of the Clean Power Plan and the changes made by the Trump Administration this week. We welcome your phone cause and comments at 2027488001 for republicans. 2027488000 for democrats. For independents and others, 20274 2027488002. One of the headlines, we saw a piece you wrote this past week, the headline was wheeler, thats the ep administrator, rolls out the carbon rule and girds for lawsuits. You write in there that Industry Groups are praising the epa. Some Industry Groups are praising the epa for finalizing rule that keeps emissions cuts, quote, inside the fence line and gives states flexibility. What does that mean, inside the fence line . Inside the fence line is the technical name for focusing on changes that can happen at the power plant facility, itself, instead of taking, for example, a fuel switching im sorry, instead of taking an emissions trading type approach where you could trade between facilities or states could trade emissions credits. We have calls waiting. We go to our democrats line. Hear from matt in miamisburg, ohio. Go ahead. Caller good morning, everyone. So i believe that since President Trump has been into office, its been horrible for the environment because theres been so many rollbacks. With the epa decrease in funding but also when they got what he got out of the paris climate accords, i think this really put this nation back and i really believe we need to bring back some of the obamaera policies. We have to have a carbon tax placed on large corporations. And i think we have to get rid of the we have to, i think, get fully some of the Democratic Candidates are proposing that we get to clean air, some stronger than others. I just believe being here in ohio, its just been the midwest, the region, weve been getting unprecedented levels of rainfall and i just think its a disgrace to what this current administrations doing. Rolling back regulations and, you know, not really having a big concern about the environment. So i just believe we need to bring back that and be aggressive and hopefully that will make a difference and the climate will be better for the future. So, thats my comment. Okay, matt. Niina farah. Sure. Thats a very good point that the Trump Administration has been making lots of rollbacks in the environmental space. The rollback of the Clean Power Plan is just one example. Theres also clean car standards, methane rules for oil and gas on public and private lands. So this is if you consider it with all the rules that are being rolled back, its certainly a big deal overall. I would note that the United States is not yet out of the paris agreement. The Trump Administration noted its intent to exit from the paris agreement, but that actually wont go into effect until the day after the 2020 president ial election. So, but we are not, also, working toward meeting the obligations, so that is a concern for environmental groups. One thing to note, also, about the Clean Power Plan is this is going to be sort of the landmark legislation that the Obama Administration was hoping to use to meet its targets under the paris agreement. So taking that away is really limiting the approach on Greenhouse Gas emissions just a look at the growth of Carbon Emissions worldwide. The unmitigated growth of Carbon Emissions is the headline. Global emissions hit yet another record high in 2018. Growing an estimated 2 over the previous year. In terms of billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide, 37 billion metric tons in 2018 and a chart here from the washington post. Germantown, north carolina, we hear from ronny next on our democrats line. Go ahead. Caller hello. Hi. Caller how you all doing this morning . Youre on the air, go ahead, ronny. Caller i would just like to say that the obama Clean Power Plan is a good situation. Its a good idea for the whole economy as well as the world because with the Clean Power Plan, that makes it safer for the universe. It reduces fossil fuels and it makes everything better with the economy, the world. It makes everything great. And also it reduces coal ash and if theres clean power, you aint got to worry about smog and everything will be great for everybody. So that plan needs to be something to work on and if its worked on enough, maybe we can make the world great. As it used to be before all the smog and the coal ash and spills and the drilling and all right, ronny, well get a response. Appreciate your call. Sure. So i will touch on the point that you made about building on the Clean Power Plan. If you actually look at the emissions targets for that rule, it was reducining green hous ga emissions by 32 from 2005 levels by 2030. Now, the power sector without that rule in place has gotten down to reducing emissions 28 . So were really on track for meeting the target of the Clean Power Plan already. And that is a point that the Trump Administration really was hammering home in its rollout of this Affordable Clean Energy rule. I think really what supporters of the Clean Power Plan want is to see a new rule that comes in like the Clean Power Plan but is actually much more ambitious because what the Clean Power Plan is now wouldnt really be enough to change the trajectory of emissions. Some 50 coal fired power plants have shut down since the president took office. Since he was sworn in. And that trend seems continue to forecast forecast to continue. Will the Affordable Clean Energy plan announced by the administration reverse that trend . No. It wont reverse it. Its possible it may slow it down a little bit. My colleague and i were looking at some of the numbers of the what epa was estimating would happen with Electricity Generation from coal, and we found that compared to data from the Energy Information administration that coal energy or electricity production went down 23 with the a. Vc. E. Rulen place and even more reductions for coal mining. So the trends the Market Trends are still continuing. And the Market Trends in terms of the coal area has been that plants have been switching to natural gas because its cheaper . Yes. Theyve been switching to natural gas because its cheaper and also to Renewable Energy as well. And so those have been appealing options in the power sector regardless of regulation. We hear from drake whos calling us from coatesville, pennsylvania. Welcome. Caller hey. How you doing . Fine. Thank you. Caller hello. Youre on the air. Go ahead. Caller yeah. My question is real simple. Repealing the regulations, i also repealing the obama regulations, my biggest concern is the impact on kids and the increase in asthma. The increase in asthma, you said, drake . Caller yes. Does repealing the regulations increase the impact of asthma in kids . Okay. Niina fa rarrah, the overall anticipated, too early to tell, in this change in legislation. So its a little bit hard to tell from the final rule what the impacts would be. If we look at the proposal, there was a big story from the New York Times which projected that there would be 1,400 additional premature deaths from air pollution associated with the rule. Now, when the Trump Administration finalized that rule, it changed the baseline for where it was measuring the effects of it, essentially, and that made the number of potential deaths appear to go down significantly. So theres a little question there of whats going on with how epa is calculating these figures and if theres obscuring, potentially, some of the effect of the rule. Our guest is niina farah with e e news. Were talking about the change in air standards and emission standards from power plants. The change this week announced by the epa. Democrats, 2027488000. And for independents and others, 20274880002. In southfield, michigan, janet on our democrats line. Caller yes. Good yes, thank you for taking my call. I was wondering if miss farah could possibly speak to the what i believe is the big juggernaut in terms of whats behind whos behind these changes, for example, the Koch Brothers because they are huge theyre the huge energy force in this country and around the world. And as a, you know, a voter and person that lives in a state like michigan, like the previous caller concerned about asthma for children, particularly in detroit and other metro areas, how do we as voters and consumers who are concerned about this issue have an impact on on this issue when you have such a Huge Industry that is in washington and have the ability to influence the epa and our legislators. Thank you. Well ask niina farah whos behind the crafting of the legislation. Sure. Theres a lot of supporters within industry. Koch, you mentioned. But certainly the power sector wanted to see a change from the obama rule to have less stringent requirements on them. A lot of republicans also in congress have supported these rollbacks, especially from energyrich states like montana and west virginia. Also as for what can be done, certainly pressure from voters, i think, can sway politicians to support different policies and, you know, theres also a separate initiative among shareholder groups that are trying to pressure these companies to get behind more regulation. So this isnt something necessarily with the coal sector, per se, but with big oil companies, theres been a big push to have shareholders Pressure Companies into stricter methane emissions some reaction on twitter. This is marybeth who tweets, more confusion for the confused. Changing federal pollution standards will create confusion. And bobby says that hopefully private business will work toward the goals of president obamas Climate Change policies and get us through the Trump Administration time period. From one of your e e news pieces, a photo of the epa administrator, Andrew Wheeler. Coal miners, members of congress, and the Trump Administration officials tae s an event this morning at the epa where administrator Andrew Wheeler unveiled the final Affordable Clean Energy rule. We hear from richard whos in austin, texas. Democrats line. Caller yes, sir. Theres two things. One, the bible, a thousand years ago, over a thousand years, its about greed. Thats all its about. Second, im laying here with cancer. My lungs, from agent orange in 1970 when these same bunch of clowns told you that agent orange had no effect on people. Ive went through heart lungs now, and all because you sprayed me with Chemical Warfare in 1970 and youve been lying it for 30 years. All right. Well hear from ed next. Staten island. Republican line. For niina farah. Caller yeah, id like to ask, why hasnt Nuclear Power been more embraced in addressing Climate Change, and also with the rise in methane gases, can that be attributed to fracking or natural Gas Production . Sure. The nuclear piece is an incredibly controversial issue. I cant speak to that really specifically. The second question about methane, was it . Yes. Yeah. In terms of can you pin some of it on fracking. Sure. So, yes, you can certainly pin some of the methane emissions on fracking. If you look at methane from the global perspective, actually, agriculture is also a very big contributor from livestock and also from Rice Production is another big source. In the socalled green energy field, whats the whats getting close to being competitive with natural gas, say, and with coal . Is it solar . Is it wind . Sure. I would say probably solar power would be number one then wind power. Theres certainly a lot of development and interest from states on developing Clean Energy Sources and i think thats also important to note in the face of this rule that states can still continue to take stricter action and that is happening in some places in our country. So nothing in this rule prohibits that right. Or wouldefforts. Thats right. The only difference is they cant use those efforts toward compliance. If they do decide they want to switch for other reasons, then they can do that. Heres brad. Hes in winthrop, maine. Winthrop, maine. Brad, go ahead. Independent line. Caller hi. I wondered if being from maine, especially, skaurocalled the tailpipe of the nation, whether the fact that theyre allowing individual states to to write their own rules to some degree means that indiana can burn a lot of coal and put it up in the air and i end up breathing it. Isnt it also true that theres a certain number of deaths associated with this change in policy . Has that been forecast or in terms of right. We talked a little bit we talked a little bit about that. Yeah, so there are forecast mortality effects with this rule. As we mentioned before, the most publicized comparison with the Clean Power Plan was 1,400 additional deaths. So essentially when you put pollution controls for Greenhouse Gases on power plants, it also controls other emissions of other pollutants and that helps to improve air quality even though thats not the main focus of the rule, itself. And there has been a big push within Industry Groups and conservative groups as well to change the way epa considers counting these additional benefits of cutting these other pollutants. That has made environmental groups incredibly nervous about sort of the level of protections that epa will have going forward. We showed a photo in your publication of the coal miners attending the ceremony the other day. Headline in the washington post, trump epa finalizes rollback of key obama climate rule that targeted coal plants. What do we know about the role of the coal industry in rewriting the regulation . Thats a good question. I would say theres a big question about the relationship of Andrew Wheeler whos the administrator at epa. He used to be a coal lobbyist for Murray Energy and so theres been a lot of questions about how much his relationship with Murray Energy has impacted this rule. Lets go one more call here and go to sun city, arizona. Anna rose. Hi there. Caller hi. Thank you. Yes. I was going to refer to that article that indicated that its the epas own assessment that there would be 1,400 more deaths as a result of this regulation. Andrew wheeler, the head of the epa, is a coal lobbyist, and i think one of the things that we are not recognizing, the silent but deadly thing thats happening in our government, is our agencies are being dismantled from the inside out. Our governments being taken down. Alex azar, hhs, is a pharmaceutical lobbyist. David bernhardt, secretary of interior, is an oil lobbyist. Acting defense secretary running the pentagon, defense lobbyist. And the usda is run by sonny purdue. You know, whos wanting to fire all the scientists at the usda and move them to kansas city. So i think this is a bigger conversation than just this one regulation, and we better make sure we make a change in 2020. All right. Anna rose in arizona. Let me circle back to the litigation you mentioned. Has that started already . Where do we anticipate that to begin . It hasnt started quite yet. So once the rule is published on the federal register, then we expect litigants to start filing claims in the d. C. Circuit. And on the environmental side, the question is going to be did epa meet the requirements of the Clean Air Act to be strict enough on emissions controls . And they would argue that, in, no no, in fact, the Trump Administration did not take Strong Enough steps to cut emission. Theres also some procedural questions about how quickly epa went about drafting this rule and whether they have enough supporting evidence behind it. Well, as that litigation gets under way, well keep watching for your reporting on this. Niina farah with e e news. Thanks for being with us this morning. Thank you so much. While congress is on break this week, a look at some American History tv programming. Tonight, the 50th anniversary of the stonewall riots in 1969 which became a turning point for gay rights in the u. S. Historian marc stein joins us from the Stonewall National monument in new york citys greenwich village. Heres a portion of tonights coverage where he explains how the riot starts after a police raid of the bar. So some people were detained inside the bar. Others began exiting the bar. But on that night, and by this time, it was the Early Morning hours of june 28th, patrons and passersby began gathering on the street outside. And as the police tried to bring those they had detained into police wagons, the crowd began to erupt, and over the next few nights there ensued rioting in the streets, protests, demonstrations. At one point the police were actually trapped inside the bar until reinforcements arrived. Tactical police were the riotcontrol police were called and tried to reestablish order on the streets. But the rioting proceeded over several days over the course of the next week. Thats part of the interview yo youll see tonight as American History tv looks at the 50th anniversary of the stonewall riots. Also a discussion on pioneering gay rights films from 1968 and 1970. Also a conversation with people who saw the protests on changes since those riots 50 years ago. Thats all tonight starting at 8 00 eastern here on cspan3. There has been discussion about an appearance before congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis own the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself. And the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress. Former special Counsel Robert Mueller is set to appear before two committees of congress on wednesday july 17th. At 9 00 a. M. Eastern, he gives testimony to the House Judiciary Committee and later in the day, hell take questions from the house intelligence committee. Both open sessions. Mr. Muellers report into russian interference in the 2016 election will air live on cspan3, online at cspan. Org, or listen with the free cspan radio app. Federal reserve chair Jerome Powell says the fed is likely to lower Interest Rates in the near future due to Global Economic challenges. He made the comments at the council on Foreign Relations in new york city during an interview with New York Times economic correspondent neil erwin. Good afternoon. Welcome to todays council on Foreign Relations,