I/III. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-regulation-epa/u-s-formally-proposes-scrapping-obamas-carbon-cutting-plan-idUSKBN1CF2D8
U.S. formally proposes scrapping Obama's carbon-cutting plan Timothy Gardner, Emily Flitter 4 MIN READ WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally proposed on Tuesday to scrap the agency’s Obama-era plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, as the Trump administration seeks to slash fossil fuel regulation. FILE PHOTO: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt speaks during an interview for Reuters at his office in Washington, U.S., July 10, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a notice that the agency intended to repeal the Clean Power Plan, which it said relied on controversial calculations of economic costs and benefits. The agency said it is “committed to righting the wrongs of the Obama administration by cleaning the regulatory slate.” The EPA is obliged to regulate carbon emissions after it found in 2009 that pollution caused by such emissions endangers human health. But it left open the question of when a new plan would emerge. “Any replacement rule will be done carefully, properly, and with humility, by listening to all those affected by the rule,” said the EPA. Pruitt said on Monday in Kentucky that he would sign the repeal proposal, but the EPA unveiled the notice in a press release on Tuesday with little fanfare. Ending the plan could save up to $33 billion in compliance costs in coming years, it said. The move is part of Republican President Donald Trump’s plan to revive the coal industry and boost domestic fossil fuel output. His administration has promised to reduce regulations on coal and drilling, which tend to be in states that form part of Trump’s voter base. But environmentalists and other supporters of the plan said Pruitt’s cost estimates “cooked the book” and did not fully consider billions of dollars in savings from reduced medical bills that would result from steep cuts in pollution from coal. The estimate also did not fully consider the future damage done from carbon emissions and the costs of U.S. carbon pollution abroad, critics say. The EPA did not issue a timeline on replacing the plan, only saying it would issue a rule in the “near future.” The ambiguity could delay fresh investment in electricity generation, an industry rife with aging plants, analysts said. “This doesn’t help steady the waters at all with regards to where the next billion dollars should be spent” by power companies, said John Larsen, a director at economic research consultancy the Rhodium Group. ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES The Clean Power Plan was finalized in 2015 but never came into effect. Last year, the Supreme Court put the brakes on it after energy-producing states complained the EPA had exceeded its legal reach. The plan had sought to reduce emissions from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Pruitt said the plan went beyond the law by forcing plants to take action to cut emissions not just at the plants but also “outside the fence line” - for instance, by investing in renewable energy. Electricity generators have pressured the Trump administration to not simply kill the plan but to form an alternative strategy, so they can avoid any future lawsuits for not taking action on emissions. An alternative plan could require plants to make boilers more efficient, for instance, but that could result in fewer overall emissions reductions, environmentalists say. Republicans praised Pruitt’s move. Senator John Barrasso, chairman of the Senate’s environment committee, said the Clean Power Plan would have hurt energy workers in his state of Wyoming, the country’s top coal producer. David Doniger, a lawyer at non-profit environmental group the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it would put Americans in greater danger from extreme weather and particulate pollution from coal plants, linked to heart and lung problems. Doniger said Tuesday’s action would trigger a legal battle, and promised to take “Pruitt and his Dirty Power Plan to court.” Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Emily Flitter; editing by Rosalba O'Brien II/III. [Not for nothing Bob Corker has termed the White House as an "adult day care centre".] https://uk.news.yahoo.com/white-house-aides-treat-trump-162315826.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&uh_test=2_04 White House Aides Treat Trump Like a Child, Never Saying 'No' and Inventing Distractions Newsweek Julia Glum Newsweek10 October 2017 White House Aides Treat Trump Like a Child, Never Saying 'No' and Inventing Distractions Aides to Donald Trump have reportedly adopted a babysitter-style strategy for dealing with the president's bad ideas: Instead of telling him "no," they make an empty promise to come back to it later. The technique was detailed in a Politico report out Monday, just after Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, tweeted the White House was effectively an "adult day care center." Current and former Trump employees, such as Barbara Res, told Politico they often attempted to forestall the president's proposals and buy some time to talk him out of them. "You either had to just convince him something better was his idea or ignore what he said to do and hoped he forgot about it the next day," said Res, who was a top executive in Trump's real estate development firm before he became president. Trending: John Kelly Has A Plan To Stop Trump From Dining at Mar-a-Lago, Sources Say Related: Donald Trump's approval rating is awful among young people The White House is constantly trying to keep Trump calm and carry on, so Monday's report isn't the first to reveal this distraction maneuver. For example, during his campaign, Trump staffers reportedly kept the tycoon from blowing up over negative media coverage by simply showing him other, more favorable stories. The morning former FBI Director James Comey was set to testify about his investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, aides packed Trump's schedule with meetings to keep him from tweeting. It's like trying to stop a child's temper tantrum. No, really. The reports reveal that Trump staffers are following parenting tips that might have been cribbed right from WebMD: "Avoid situations in which tantrums are likely to erupt," "give your toddler a little bit of control," "distract." Employees have also used special methods to trick Trump into doing his job. Reuters revealed in May that National Security Council officials intentionally include Trump's name in "as many paragraphs as [they] can because he keeps reading if he’s mentioned." They also keep policy documents to one page and include graphics because "the president likes maps," as one anonymous staffer told The New York Times. Don't miss: Most Americans Do Not Back Plans to Deport Dreamers, New Poll Shows Like watchful guardians, aides also keep an eye on Trump as he moves around the White House and into rooms with easy access to TVs, according to The Washington Post. Advisers even tell foreign leaders that one of the best ways to strike a favorable deal with Trump is to flatter him—specifically, to bring up the fact that he won the election in the Electoral College. The toddler-Trump comparisons are nothing new, but they are ramping up because of the recent back-and-forth with Corker. The senator blasted the president in a Times interview this weekend after Trump criticized him for not seeking re-election. "He concerns me," Corker said. "I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him." Just don't call Trump a moron. III. https://www.yahoo.com/news/sanders-defends-trumps-false-tax-claim-just-going-agree-disagree-195336719.html?soc_src=community&soc_trk=fb Sanders defends Trump's false tax claim: 'We're just going to have to agree to disagree' Michael WalshReporter,Yahoo News•October 11, 2017 WH pressed about Trump incorrectly saying U.S. is highest-taxed nation in the world Yahoo News Video 0:50 President Trump returned Tuesday to his oft-repeated talking point that the United States is the most heavily taxed nation on Earth. He’s wrong. According to pool reports, Trump made the false claim in the Oval Office during a meeting with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. “I will say that we’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. People want to see massive tax cuts,” Trump said. Trey Yingst, chief White House correspondent for One America News, a conservative cable news channel, confronted White House press secretary Sarah Sanders about the claim, which Trump has made before, during the press briefing later Tuesday afternoon. “Why does the president keep saying it? It’s not true overall,” Yingst asked. “We are the highest-taxed — corporate tax — in the developed economy. That’s a fact,” Sanders responded. But Yingst was not satisfied with Sanders answer. “That’s not what the president said,” he said. “That’s what he’s talking about,” Sanders replied. “We’re the highest corporate-taxed country in the developed economies across the globe.” “Sarah, that’s accurate but the president keeps repeating this claim that we’re the highest-taxed nation…” Yingst said. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) More Looking visibly annoyed, Sanders said, “We are the highest-taxed corporate nation.” “But that’s not what he said. He said we’re the highest-taxed nation in the world,” Yingst said. “The highest-taxed corporate nation. That seems pretty consistent to me. Sorry, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree,” Sanders said, before moving on to the next question. The Congressional Budget Office, the federal agency that provides budget and tax information to Congress, reports that the U.S. has the top statutory corporate tax rate (39.1 percent) of the G20-member countries. However, the United States’ average corporate tax rate — “the total amount of corporate income taxes that companies pay relative to their income” — of 29 percent is ranked third behind Argentina (37.3) and Indonesia (36.4). The United States’ effective corporate tax rate — “the percentage of income from a marginal investment … that must be paid in corporate income taxes” — of 18.6 percent is ranked fourth behind Argentina (22.6), Japan (21.7) and the United Kingdom (18.7). When looking beyond the G20, the United States has the third-highest general top marginal corporate income tax rate in the world, at 38.92 percent, according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that researches U.S. tax policies. It trails the United Arab Emirates and Puerto Rico, which has its own tax code. But Trump has repeatedly said that the U.S. is the most-heavily-taxed nation in debates and speeches. Follow Daniel Dale ✔@ddale8 This is not true. Trump sometimes says corporate tax rate. He knows what's correct. Instead he chooses to lie by referring to all taxes. https://twitter.com/christinawilkie/status/917820408468004867 … 12:25 AM - Oct 11, 2017 51 51 Replies 189 189 Retweets 496 496 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy PolitiFact rated Trump’s claim that the U.S. is “the highest-taxed country in the world” as false in February 2016 after a Republican primary debate. The fact-checking website concluded that the U.S. “is far from the most-taxed nation in the world, whether it’s an advanced industrialized economy or not.” The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that taxation accounted for 26.4 percent of the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015. That’s lower than the 34.3 percent average for the 35 countries in the OECD. Denmark had the highest total tax take of 46.6 percent. OECD data reaching back to 2001 shows that tax bills in the United States are below average for developed countries, the Pew Research Center concluded. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a public-policy think tank, said that Trump would also be wrong if he was talking about federal income tax rates for individuals. The Netherlands’ highest national income tax rate is 52 percent. That’s more than 12 percentage points higher than the top federal individual income rate of 39.6 percent in the U.S. “Notwithstanding our high corporate tax rate, the U.S. is not close to being the highest-taxed country in the world,” CRFB concluded. Determining which country has the highest tax rate is complicated and depends on the data researchers examine. Using data from OECD, Investopedia reported that Portugal has the highest tax rate for people with high incomes (61.3 percent); Belgium has the highest level for average-earning single people without children (42 percent); and Turkey has the highest levy for average-earning married couples with two children where only one spouse works (25.8 percent). And according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, Argentina’s total tax rate is an extraordinary 137.3 percent. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
