WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Senator Tom Udall, ranking member on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, released the following statement after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that the Trump administration will end the Clean Power Plan:
“The Trump administration’s continued denial of climate change in service of big polluters will have grave consequences for our children and our grandchildren. Killing the Clean Power Plan is a reckless and dangerous decision that jeopardizes the health, safety, economy, and way of life of people in New Mexico and across the country.
"Administrator Pruitt’s announcement is completely out of step with the facts on the ground and with the will of the American people, including the broader business community. New Mexicans continue to support and demand action to fight climate change because they already see the devastating effects of climate change in their daily lives. Rising temperatures, more frequent droughts, and increasingly severe wildfires place New Mexico and the Southwest in the bull’s-eye of global warming. We cannot afford inaction.
“New Mexico can be a leader in the global clean energy economy, creating thousands of new, good-paying jobs in wind, solar, energy efficiency and other cleaner technologies. But today’s move is a short-sighted attempt to undermine all that progress, and give a competitive advantage to the competition in Asia and Europe.
“Yet again, the Trump administration is turning its back on the public interest, and future generations will pay the price. Now, it’s up to all of us – elected officials, states like New Mexico, local communities, businesses – to come together and do our part to make up for the costly mistakes of this administration.”
