Environmental groups that have hired extra lawyers in recent months are prepared to go to court to fight a sweeping executive order from President Donald Trump that eliminates many restrictions on fossil fuel production and would roll back his predecessor's plans to curb global warming.
But they said they'll take their first battle to the court of public opinion.
Advocates said they plan to work together to mobilize a public backlash against an executive order signed by Trump yesterday that includes initiating a review of former President Barack Obama's signature plan to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants and lifting a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.
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Trump, who has called global warming a "hoax" invented by the Chinese, said during his campaign that he would kill Obama's climate plans and bring back coal jobs.
Even so, "this is not what most people elected Trump to do," said David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who said Trump's actions are short-sighted and won't bring back the jobs he promised. "Poll after poll shows that the public supports climate action."
A poll released in September found 71 per cent of Americans want the US government to do something about global warming, including 6 percent who think the government should act even though they are not sure that climate change is happening.
That poll, which also found most Americans are willing to pay a little more each month to fight global warming, was conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.
The White House did not respond to Associated Press emails seeking comment; the Department of Justice declined comment.
While Republicans have blamed Obama-era environmental regulations for the loss of coal jobs, federal data show that US mines have been losing jobs for decades under presidents from both parties because of automation and competition from natural gas and because solar panels and wind turbines can produce emissions-free electricity cheaper than burning coal.
But many people in coal country are counting on the jobs that Trump has promised, and industry advocates praised his orders.
"These executive actions are a welcome departure from the previous administration's strategy of making energy more expensive through costly, job-killing regulations that choked our economy," said US Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue.
The order also will scrap language on the "social cost" of greenhouse gases, and will initiate a review of efforts to reduce the emission of methane in oil and natural gas production as well as a Bureau of Land Management hydraulic fracturing rule, to determine whether those reflect the president's policy priorities.
It also will rescind Obama-era executive orders and memoranda, including one that addressed climate change and national security and one that sought to prepare the country for the impacts of climate change.
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