"U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is preparing to release a wide-ranging executive order to reduce the role that climate change plays in policy decisions, according to a Trump administration official who reviewed a draft of the order.

The move could alter how U.S. agencies weigh regulations on a broad array of industries, from drilling, coal mining and auto manufacturing to refining.

The official on Tuesday confirmed a Bloomberg News report that the executive order will instruct the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies to overhaul their use of the "social cost of carbon," an Obama-era policy that seeks to quantify potential economic damage from climate change for the purposes of drafting regulation."

David Shepardson reports for Reuters March 14, 2017. [2]