Summary Trump will sign an executive order to undo Barack Obama's plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Tuesday to undo his predecessor Barack Obama s plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fueled power plants, according to the new environmental chief.
Speaking on ABC s Sunday talk show "This Week," Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said rolling back Obama s 2015 Clean Power Plan would bring back coal jobs.
"The past administration had a very anti-fossil fuel strategy," he said. "So this is a promise (Trump) is keeping to the American people to say that we can put people back to work."
Told by ABC host George Stephanopolous that most coal-job losses took place a decade ago under Obama s predecessor George W. Bush -- as natural gas increasingly replaced coal -- Pruitt dismissed concerns that Trump had made a promise he can t keep.
"It will bring back manufacturing jobs across the country, coal jobs across the country," he said of the president s forthcoming order.
"For too long over the last several years, we have accepted a narrative that if you re pro-growth, pro-jobs, you re anti-environment," he added, accusing the Obama administration of making "efforts to kill jobs across this country through the clean power plan."
He said Trump s order would also lower electricity rates for Americans.
Supporters of the Clean Power Plan say it would help create thousands of clean-energy jobs.
A known fossil-fuel ally, Pruitt s appointment to head the EPA -- an agency he repeatedly sued as a state attorney general -- has been deeply contentious.
Earlier this month, the climate change skeptic said he believes carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to global warming, as scientists have said for decades.
Trump s action comes as the Clean Power Plan rule has been on hold since last year while a federal appeals court considers a challenge by coal-friendly Republican-governed states and more than 100 companies.
Trump s proposed federal budget unveiled earlier this month already envisioned ending funding for the plan along with a number of other programs aimed at combating climate change.
Trump s order -- along with his promise to reverse rules about vehicle emissions -- would make it impossible for the United States to reach its commitments under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
But Pruitt criticized the accord as a "bad deal."
"This is an effort to undo the unlawful approach the previous administration engaged in," he said of Trump s executive order, "and to do it right going forward with the mindset of being pro-growth and pro-environment."
He called Obama s emissions rules "counter-helpful to the environment."
As attorney general for Oklahoma, the 48-year-old Republican filed or joined in more than a dozen law suits to block key EPA rules, siding with industry executives and activists seeking to roll back various regulations on pollution, clean air and clean water.
