Trump to drop climate change from environmental reviews: Bloomberg

(Reuters) - President Donald Trump is set to sign an order to greatly reduce the role climate change plays in decision making across the U.S. government, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the administration's plan. The order, which could be signed this week, aims to reverse former Democratic President Barack Obama's broad approach for addressing climate change, the report said. (http://bloom.bg/2nkDvKo) The directive will urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to undo the Clean Power Plan, the Bloomberg report said. The Clean Power Plan is Obama's centerpiece initiative to combat climate change, requiring states to slash emissions of carbon dioxide, but it was never implemented due to legal challenges launched by several Republican states. According to the report, the measure would direct U.S. regulators to rescind Obama-era regulations limiting oil industry emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The order will also involve a reconsideration of the government's use of a metric known as the "social cost of carbon", which weighs the potential economic damage from climate change, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Trump has long signaled his intention to reverse Obama's climate-change initiatives, but the Republican president has vowed his planned overhaul of green regulation would not jeopardize America's water and air quality. Reuters reported earlier this month that the White House had proposed to slash a quarter of the EPA's budget, targeting climate-change programs and those designed to prevent air and water pollution like lead contamination. The Bloomberg report said that some of the changes could happen immediately, while others could take years to implement. (Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)