EPA to review how environmental laws influence energy industry jobs

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) noted on Wednesday it will examine how laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act result in energy industry job losses. This is one of the measures that U.S. agencies are about to take in order to “reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens” on business, according to Reuters.

The measure proposed by the EPA intends to carry out an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in March, in which he instructed cabinet chiefs to determine ways to facilitate regulatory burdens on energy development.

Specifically, EPA will conduct a study in order to determine how its regulations can cause jobs to be lost in sectors like coal, despite the ruling of a federal court which noted that it wasn’t necesarry for the EPA to conduct such a study.

Additionally to the study, EPA is set to create a task force to ease the permit process for building new polluting facilities as well as to restructure national ambient air quality standards.

EPA will also cooperate with the industries in a “smart sectors” program while it creates regulations, Reuters said.

From its part, the Energy Department will take measures as well, such as reviewing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), regulations for approving major infrastructure project and improving offshore natural gas exports.

The Interior Department provided President Trump with an “energy burdens” report, which restructures – or plans to – previous regulations. This report includes the stop of the moratorium on coal leases, revision on regulations about fracking on federal and tribal land, formulation of a plan for offshore drilling and finally, improvement of the federal leasing program and permitting process.

Environmental groups are opposing to the these measures, as they claim that with that way, natural resources will be placed to polluters, Reuters notes.