New Donald Trump executive order will loosen environmental regulations: report

The Clean Power Plan is Obama’s centerpiece initiative to combat climate change, requiring states to slash emissions of carbon dioxide, but it was never implemented due to legal challenges launched by several Republican states.According to the report, the measure would direct U.S. regulators to rescind Obama-era regulations limiting oil industry emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.WATCH: Bernie Sanders critical of Trump for not addressing social security, climate change The order will also involve a reconsideration of the government’s use of a metric known as the “social cost of carbon,” which weighs the potential economic damage from climate change, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.Trump has long signaled his intention to reverse Obama’s climate-change initiatives, but the Republican president has vowed his planned overhaul of green regulation would not jeopardize America’s water and air quality.READ MORE: Donald Trump’s administration orders EPA to pull climate change page off websiteReuters reported earlier this month that the White House had proposed to slash a quarter of the EPA’s budget, targeting climate-change programs and those designed to prevent air and water pollution like lead contamination.The Bloomberg report said that some of the changes could happen immediately, while others could take years to implement.WATCH: Climate change factor in Doomsday Clock ticking towards apocalypse