By James Murray

March 27, 2017 - After several false starts, President Trump is tomorrow expected to sign a sweeping executive order designed to roll back a raft of Obama era climate policies and mobilise fresh investment in fossil fuel infrastructure.

In a bid to restore some political momentum following the collapse of Republican attempts at healthcare reform, the White House this weekend began trailing the new executive order, which will be wider in scope than had been previously expected. 

In recent weeks the Trump administration had announced an executive order to review and potentially repeal President Obama's Clean Power Plan would soon follow Trump's order demanding a review of vehicle emissions standards.

However, Bloomberg reported yesterday that this week's executive order will take in a larger number of Obama-era environmental rules, including directives requiring officials to consider climate impacts and the social cost of carbon in policy decisions, regulations covering fracking projects on federal lands, and a moratorium on the sale of new coal leases on federal land.

The executive order will be positioned as an attempt to create jobs and bolster investment in new energy projects, and will order all federal agencies to review, suspend, revise or rescind all actions that constrain the use of domestic energy that are not legally mandated.

Bloomberg reported that the draft order does make mention of clean energy sources the US can take advantage of, but appears to be primarily designed to accelerate the development of oil, gas, coal, and nuclear power infrastructure.

Speaking on ABC's This Week programme yesterday, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt confirmed the new order would come on Tuesday and would be designed to drive economic growth and deliver on the President's campaign promises.

"The president is keeping his promise to the American people this week with respect to this executive order that's coming out on Tuesday, the Energy Independence Executive Order," Pruitt said. "And as you indicated, this is about making sure that we have a pro-growth and pro-environment approach to how we do regulation in this country."

He also reiterated his opposition to the Paris Agreement, glossing over recent data showing China is curbing its emissions growth and multi-billion dollar clean energy investments from China and India to allege that the Asian superpowers were not taking steps to tackle climate change.

"What was wrong with Paris was not just that it was, you know, failed to be treated as a treaty, but China and India, the largest producers of CO2 internationally, got away scot-free," he said. "They didn't have to take steps until 2030. So we've penalized ourselves through lost jobs while China and India didn't take steps to address the issue internationally. So Paris was just a bad deal, in my estimation."  

Trump's latest executive order is expected to face fierce opposition from green groups, some businesses, many of America's largest states, and Democrats.

Legal action challenging the roll back of climate policies appears inevitable, with green groups emboldened by the fact the Clean Power Plan and several other EPA rules introduced by Obama are underpinned by a Supreme Court decision that greenhouse gas emissions should be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Meanwhile, some analysts have argued that the falling cost of clean energy technologies and concerns at a state level about climate change and air pollution means Trump will struggle to reverse the pressures facing the coal industry.

However, fresh from approving the Keystone XL pipeline last week, Trump looks set to step up efforts to mobilise a fresh round of US fossil fuel investment.

The executive order will also come against a backdrop of the latest debate on Capitol Hill over the causes of climate change. Climate sceptic Republican representative Lamar Smith has scheduled a hearing of the House Science Committee to discuss "assumptions, policy implications, and the scientific method" relating to climate change. A number of prominent climate sceptic scientists are scheduled to give evidence, while Democrats have invited leading climate scientists to appear.