E&E NEWS: HOUSE DEM ENERGY CAUCUS MAKES OVERTURE TO TRUMP

A House Democratic caucus pilloried President Donald Trump’s first set of executive actions, accusing him of working to “gut our bedrock pollution and environmental protections.”
But in a multipage letter filled with both bullet points and outrage, the leaders of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition offered something of an olive branch.
 

"We are committed to working with your Administration" to "protect Americans from harm, to grow the middle class, and to make our government work for the average American," they wrote.
 

The group is led by Democratic Co-chairs Doris Matsui of California, Mike Quigley of Illinois and Paul Tonko of New York.
 

The Wednesday letter to Trump outlined a bevy of objections to his executive orders and other actions issued Monday, arguing, "we will fight back against your efforts to dismantle the federal response to climate change, gut our bedrock pollution regulations, and run roughshod over landmark environmental protections.”
 

Trump’s Monday actions sought to start a wholesale reversal of former President Joe Biden’s environmental agenda, telling relevant agencies to start issuing permits for liquefied natural gas exports, withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, halt spending on Biden’s signature climate law, and roll back numerous regulations on pollution from vehicles and power plants, among other actions.
 

Among the Democrats’ arguments are that the vehicle tailpipe emissions rules “have significantly improved air quality in major cities, reducing rates of childhood asthma and other respiratory illnesses that were once common in communities across the country;” that withdrawing from Paris “reduces our influence in the world, threatening our prosperity and delivering an easy win for China;” and that dismantling the social cost of carbon analysis “enables polluters to continue to pollute at the cost of the American people.”
 

The SEEC leaders pushed Trump to reverse course, saying, "we will not stand by while you endanger the American people.”