Wallace to Pruitt on Relaxing Coal Regs: Aren’t You Risking More Asthma Attacks?

WALLACE: A look at Nationals Park, where Washington’s finest have opening day tomorrow for the baseball season. But, there will be no presidential first pitch as the White House declined an invitation.

Mr. Trump, who once called global warming a hoax, signed a sweeping executive order this week calling for regulators to rewrite President Obama’s climate change policies.

... When the Obama EPA announced its Clean Power Plan, it said that the reduction in carbon pollution would have the following health benefits. I want to put them up on the screen.

By 2030, it said there would be 90,000 fewer asthma attacks a year, 300,000 fewer missed work and school days, and 3,600 fewer premature deaths a year.

Without the Clean Power Plan, how are you going to prevent those terrible things?

PRUITT: Well, Chris, I think what’s important this past week is to recognize that the president is keeping his promise to the American people to rollback regulatory overreaches that have been occurring the last couple of years. And as you know, the Clean Power Plan is subject to a U.S. Supreme Court state. The steps have been taken by the EPA historically, they’ve equally been challenged several times with respective CO2 regulation. And each of those times the Supreme Court and courts have said that the power that has been used has been an overreach.

And so, the president is keeping his promise to deal with that overreach, Chris. It doesn’t mean that clean air and clean water is not going to be the focus in the future. We’re just going to do it right within the consistency of the framework that Congress has passed. Now, I think that’s very important to recognize.