The tension between the Trump administration’s proclaimed goals of ensuring clean air and promoting the use of high-polluting coal is increasingly visible in its treatment of congressionally authorized efforts to restore pristine views to highly prized recreational areas.
While Republicans once bashed federal regulators for steamrolling state prerogatives, it’s now GOP appointees angling to quash a Colorado haze reduction plan. In addition, EPA recently launched an initiative to overhaul the haze program and — critics fear — gut it.
Although the agency’s ultimate course has yet to be set, “it could amount to the biggest attack on the regional haze rule we’ve ever seen,” Ulla Reeves, clean air director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in an interview.
Already, the administration’s handling of what is formally known as the regional haze program has triggered three lawsuits, with more likely to come.