Declaring that an imagined "war on coal is over", US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt declared war on clean air and the climate by announcing plans to repeal an Obama Administration policy to cut greenhouse gas emissions produced by power plants.

"The war on coal is over," Pruitt said at an event in the town of Hazard, Kentucky, right in the middle of coal country.  "The EPA and no federal agency should ever use its authority to say to you: we are going to declare war on any sector of our economy."

Then-President Barack Obama announced the Clean Power Plan (CPP) in 2015, which scaled back coal-fired power plants in favor of the use of renewable energy.  The goal was to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electrical power generation by 32 percent from 2005 levels by the year 2030.

But Pruitt and the Trump administration's plan doesn't merely tear down the CPP, it fails to offer a replacement strategy on how to regulate emissions.

"With this news, Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt will go down in infamy for launching one of the most egregious attacks ever on public health, our climate, and the safety of every community in the United States," said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune in a statement.  "He's proposing to throw out a plan that would prevent thousands of premature deaths and tens of thousands of childhood asthma attacks every year," Brune added.