Just weeks ago, the Trump administration proposed its long-awaited answer to the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP). The CPP was the first federal endeavor to regulate greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from existing fossil-fuel fired power plants following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) that carbon dioxide and other GHGs are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act (CAA) and, therefore, can be regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But the CPP’s fate was marred from the start, with the rule’s detractors immediately rushing to challenge the rule in federal court, and the Supreme Court ultimately deciding in early 2016 to halt implementation of the rule pending the outcome of the litigation in the lower court.

At the same time, then-candidate Donald Trump was already touting his plans to repeal the CPP and replace it with a solution that more thoroughly considered the coal industry’s needs. Then shortly after taking office, President Trump issued an executive order to roll back Obama’s climate change initiatives, focusing on the CPP. Jumping ahead to August 2018, the EPA has now released its proposal for replacing the CPP. The proposed rule is known as the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule (83 Fed. Reg. 44,746 (Aug. 31, 2018)). But does the ACE rule deliver the sharp turn away from the CPP that the Trump administration promised? This article takes a closer look at the ACE rule and how it stacks up against the CPP.

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