The Trump administration proposed its plan Tuesday to gut a controversial Obama-era rule to cut carbon pollution from power plants, dealing a death blow to an ambitious regulation designed to be the backbone of the United States strategy to stave off climate catastrophe.

The new regulation, which Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed Monday, is called the Affordable Clean Energy rule . It gives states leeway to set their own, drastically lower greenhouse gas emissions targets and restrict what states can do to force coal plants to improve efficiency.

The rule marks one of the most significant rollbacks yet to Barack Obama s climate legacy, and despite the Trump administrations oft-repeated calls for regulatory certainty is expected to ignite a yearslong legal battle.

The increased carbon dioxide released under the new rule could lead to up to 1,400 premature deaths each year by 2030, according to the EPAs own analysis. When asked about the deaths during a 10 a.m. call with reporters, Bill Wehrum, the assistant administrator for the EPAs Office of Air and Radiation, sputtered through his answer, repeatedly noting that the agency had the abundant authority to make the changes it proposed.

Frankly, its quite minimal compared to the overall emissions that were dealing with here, he said. We think its enormously important in the first instance to stay within the law and implement the law as Congress requires us to do.

Wehrum called the Clean Power Plan ephemeral, and a misapplication of the Clean Air Act.

The call marked a departure in style from the kind of flashy press conference that became a hallmark of former Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Today we are fulfilling the presidents agenda, Wheeler said in opening remarks. He left the call before taking any questions from reporters.

Were ending intrusive EPA regulations that kill jobs ... and raise the price of energy so quickly and so substantially, President Donald Trump said in a statement Tuesday morning. In a tweet , he touted clean coal as he announced a rally in West Virginia on behalf of the Republican running to unseat Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

The public will have 60 days to comment on the rule after the EPA submits it Tuesday morning to the Federal Register.