Heinrich Statement On Trump’s Rollback Of Clean Power Plan

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, issued the following statement regarding President Trump's new rule to gut the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan:

"There is no doubt that climate change is already disrupting our lives. We are seeing unprecedented wildfires raging throughout the West, more extreme weather events across the nation, and volatile precipitation patterns in New Mexico that are causing both dangerous drought conditions and violent flash floods. We cannot afford to wait on action to confront climate change.

"The Clean Power Plan was a historic step in combating climate change and protecting the health of our kids and future generations. It established reasonable and achievable standards to reduce our carbon emissions and create thousands of new clean energy jobs in the process.

"Now, President Trump is taking us in the completely wrong direction. When we know exactly what we need to do to reduce our contributions to climate change--and when we have the capability to create thousands of new jobs and build a thriving clean energy economy--President Trump's decision to retreat from leadership is shortsighted, willfully ignorant, and immoral.

"If we fail to reduce carbon emissions, the consequences of our inaction will only become greater, and our solutions will only become more expensive. I will do everything I can to oppose this proposal because we can no longer wait to act on climate."