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The Affordable Clean Energy rule has finalized on Wednesday and officially overturned & replaced the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. According to Trump administration’s own accounting, it could cause 1,400 deaths per year. The Clean Power Plan worked to cut dangerous carbon and pollution emissions from the energy sector. The new plan will make it easier for electricity plants to release toxins into the air by which limiting the regulations for controlling CO2 emissions from power plants. The EPA itself formerly estimated that the new plan could cause at least 1,400 premature deaths, including 48,000 cases of exacerbated asthma compared to the baseline established with the Clean Power Plan. It was also reported by The New York Times last month that the EPA now plans to change the model it uses to report environmental hazards by assuming there would be no extra health benefits to going above and beyond current guidelines for clean air in the United States.

An environmental lawyer at New York University, Richard L. Revesz informed The Times, “Particulate matter is extremely harmful and it leads to a large number of premature deaths. The recent change to the rule could be an enormously significant impact”. Moreover, the environmental watchdog groups spoke out against the recent finalized rule change. The Natural Resources Defense Council also said they would sue the Trump administration over the new rule. NRDC President Rhea Suh said in a statement, “It details the many ways Trump’s approach ignores the public’s demand for climate action, violates the Clean Air Act, and cooks the books on the science behind climate change, air pollution, and the true costs and benefits of addressing both”. The National Wildlife Federation said in a statement that the new plan of EPA is worse for the environment than no plan at all. The director of climate and energy policy at the National Wildlife Federation, Shannon Heyck-Williams said, “How we choose to power our nation will determine how serious we are about confronting climate change”.