New York state and national officials on Tuesday decried President Donald Trump’s planned elimination of the Clean Power Plan, calling it a “misguided” action that “shockingly ignores basic science,” among other things.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a joint statement with California Gov. Jerry Brown opposing the executive order signed by Trump on Tuesday that begins the process of rolling back the former President Barack Obama-era regulatory plan aimed at reducing carbon dioxide pollution from power plants.

“Dismantling the Clean Power Plan and other critical climate programs is profoundly misguided and shockingly ignores basic science. With this move, the Administration will endanger public health, our environment and our economic prosperity,” they wrote in the statement. “… We stand together with a majority of the American people in supporting bold actions to protect our communities from the dire consequences of climate change.”

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman also issued a statement condemning the order.

“We won’t hesitate to protect those we serve — including by aggressively opposing in court President Trump’s actions that ignore both the law and the critical importance of confronting the very real threat of climate change,” Schneiderman said in the statement.

The Clean Power Plan is a set of guidelines for power plants that would have forced them to reduce carbon emissions by 2030. The plan would have lowered carbon pollution in the energy sector to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, if fully implemented, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Carbon dioxide is the most prevalent greenhouse gas pollutant, according to the EPA, and accounts for nearly 82 percent of the U.S.’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The plan had been stuck in the courts for months, however, prior to Trump’s order. Critics accused the Clean Power Plan of being unconstitutional and more than two dozen states joined a mix of electric utilities, unions and other groups to hold the plan up in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, according to Bloomberg.

Trump criticized the regulatory framework during his campaign last year and said the changes bring about a “new energy revolution that celebrates American production on American soil” while signing the orders Tuesday aiming to kill the Clean Power Plan and several other environmental and climate policies pushed through by Obama.

While some energy companies celebrated the move, according to NPR, officials like Cuomo and Schneiderman adamantly opposed the deregulation. Addressing the U.S.’s largest source of carbon pollution, Schneiderman said in his office’s news release that it “is essential” in mitigating climate change’s negative impacts.

Power plants are the largest source of carbon pollution in the U.S., according to the EPA. The electric power sector, for example, accounted for 32 percent of the U.S.’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2012.

Schneiderman is leading a coalition of other state attorney generals, officials from locations ranging from Hawaii to Maine, in opposition to Trump’s action, according to his office’s release. Cuomo and Brown in their statement pledged to continue fighting the affects of climate change.

“Together, California and New York represent approximately 60 million people — nearly one-in-five Americans — and 20 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product,” Cuomo and Brown said in their statement. “With or without Washington, we will work with our partners throughout the world to aggressively fight climate change and protect our future.”

Published on March 28, 2017 at 9:30 pm

Contact Sam: sfogozal@syr.edu | @SamOgozalek