Russia Mulls Ceasefire, EPA Rollbacks, Iran Rebuffs Trump

Speaker 1 Russia is reviewing a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire with Ukraine.

Speaker 2 This, as an American envoy, is in Moscow to negotiate the plan Ukraine has already accepted. Will he seal the deal or will Russia press for more concessions?

Speaker 1 I mean, Martinez, that's Michelle Martin, and this is up first from NPR News.

Speaker 1 The Trump administration is gutting environmental rules, calling it a win for business, but critics say the EPA rollbacks could lead to more pollution and health risks.

Speaker 4 They're going to take our country back to a time when rivers caught on fire and kids couldn't go outside without seizing up from an asthma attack.

Speaker 2 And the president sent a letter to Iran proposing nuclear toxicity.

Speaker 6 Can't let him have a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 2 But the Supreme Leader is not buying Trump's offer. He calls it a deception.
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Speaker 2 A top White House envoy is in Moscow today seeking Russia's response to the offer of a 30-day ceasefire. That's the same offer the U.S.
brokered with Ukraine earlier this week.

Speaker 2 Under the proposal, the U.S. promised to restore military and intelligence support to Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine promising an end to attacks on Russia.
The question is, would Russia reciprocate?

Speaker 2 Early signs suggest Russia remains skeptical. Joining us to talk about this is NPR Russia correspondent Charles Mainz.
Charles, good morning.

Speaker 3 Morning.

Speaker 2 So what do we know about these talks and the Kremlin's position going into them?

Speaker 3 Well, yesterday the Kremlin spokesman said Moscow wanted to hear detailed information directly from the Americans, and today we learn they're getting it on multiple fronts.

Speaker 3 White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff arrived this morning for talks with Kremlin officials.

Speaker 3 That's his second trip to Moscow since he negotiated the release of an American school teacher last month.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, Putin's advisor, Yuri Ushakov, said he'd been in direct telephone contact with U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
Waltz was one of the key U.S.

Speaker 3 negotiators in talks with the Ukrainians, and Yushakov made clear Moscow found the U.S. proposal lacking.

Speaker 3 So here, Ushakov says Russia saw the ceasefire as simply an opportunity for Ukraine to regroup and rearm.

Speaker 3 And he went on to repeat that Moscow wants a long-term end to the conflict that takes into account Russia's security interests, something the Kremlin has said often, frankly.

Speaker 2 All right. So look, it's a negotiation.

Speaker 2 But does this mean, does this, I don't know what you want to call this, sort of signaling mean that the ceasefire proposal has already failed, that the talks are over before they began?

Speaker 3 Not necessarily. I mean, that's what what Witkoff is in Moscow to discuss.
But clearly, these two sides are far apart.

Speaker 3 Keep in mind, Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously said quite explicitly he would not accept a temporary ceasefire because he wanted a peace that addressed, in his words, the root of the conflict.

Speaker 3 Now, that's Kremlin speak for Russia's demands that NATO retreat from Russia's borders and, of course, forego Ukraine. There's also this.

Speaker 3 So last night, Putin, dressed in military camouflage with state media cameras in tow, visited Army headquarters in the Russian region of Kursk.

Speaker 3 Now that's where Russian troops appear to be finally on the verge of driving out occupying Ukrainian forces who've been there for months. So this was essentially a propaganda tour.

Speaker 3 And while Putin made no mention of the Ukrainian ceasefire offer, it certainly felt like he was signaling he preferred a military solution. He told his generals to essentially crush the enemy.

Speaker 2 So is the message here, or is the message what he's trying to signal is why bother negotiating over what you're winning anyway?

Speaker 3 Well, that's certainly the point made by more nationalist voices inside Russian society. They say this proposal by Ukraine is really an attempt to use diplomacy to stave off defeat militarily.

Speaker 3 The catch is that while that may be true in Kursk, where it seems as though Russian forces are genuinely making big gains, it's a harder slog in actual occupied Ukraine.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, polls show a majority of Russians want an end to the conflict in some fashion.

Speaker 3 And so, given that, you know, does Putin risk alienating Donald Trump, given what at least so far has been a very favorable climate of negotiations?

Speaker 2 Aaron Trevor Burrus: Well, to that end, that Trump has been criticized so far for seeming to cut a deal almost exclusively on Moscow's terms. Has that changed?

Speaker 3 Well, we'll have to see. You know, Trump has suggested at times that he'll get tough with Moscow through new sanctions if the Kremlin fails to sign on to this deal.

Speaker 3 But Trump team has already gone on record also saying no to Ukraine's membership in NATO, no to Ukraine regaining all its territory, and it's put in doubt its commitments to European allies.

Speaker 3 So you have to think that even if Putin doesn't agree with this ceasefire deal as it's presented now, he'll be looking for ways to present counteroffers and keep the White House engaged.

Speaker 2 That is NPR Russia correspondent Charles Maines. Charles, thank you.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 2 The Trump administration is moving to dismantle decades of key environmental and climate rules and policies.

Speaker 1 That announcement came yesterday in what Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldon called the most consequential day of deregulation in U.S.

Speaker 1 history, rolling back more than two dozen regulations. Environmental groups predict this will lead to a future with more pollution.

Speaker 2 Jeff Brady from NPR's Climate Desk is here to tell us more about this. Good morning, Jeff.
Good morning, Michelle. So which regulations are being targeted?

Speaker 6 You know, probably the most significant is something called the endangerment finding.

Speaker 6 In 2009, the EPA determined that human-cause greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that are heating up the planet, those endanger public health and welfare. This decision was years in the making.

Speaker 6 Litigation that led to it went all the way to the Supreme Court, and now it's the basis for many of the country's climate regulations.

Speaker 6 EPA Administrator Lee Zeldon put out a video statement that suggests he thinks it's not constitutional.

Speaker 11 I've been told the endangerment finding is considered the holy grail of the climate change religion.

Speaker 6 For me, The U.S.

Speaker 11 Constitution and the laws of this nation will be strictly interpreted and followed. No exceptions.

Speaker 2 What are some of the other regulations the EPA is reconsidering?

Speaker 6 Zeldin said the agency will reconsider rules that limit climate pollution from power plants and from cars and trucks, also regulations that limit soot and mercury in the air, other rules that Zeldin claims are hurting the economy and costing trillions of dollars.

Speaker 6 But that leaves out the fact that pollution also costs the country, you know, in health costs and cleanup. It's not clear whether EPA plans to get rid of these rules or weaken them.

Speaker 6 Those details should come later.

Speaker 2 And what are environmental groups saying about this?

Speaker 6 You know, this is even more dramatic than what they expected, and certainly more aggressive than the policies Trump pursued during his first administration.

Speaker 6 One group, the Environmental Integrity Project, said the EPA is driving, quote, a dagger straight into the heart of public health.

Speaker 6 I talked with Matthew Tejada at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He called this an all-out assault on the law, science, and the administrative part of the government that keeps people safe.

Speaker 4 They're going to roll these things back, and they're going to take our country back to a time when rivers caught on fire and kids couldn't go outside without seizing up from an asthma attack.

Speaker 6 Just as the country is making this big transition from fossil fuels that are heating the planet to cleaner energy, Tejada says the Trump administration is tying the country to oil and gas for another century.

Speaker 2 And what about the oil industry? How's the oil industry responding to to this EPA announcement?

Speaker 6 Well, they're pretty happy. The American Petroleum Institute said voters picked Trump for cheaper energy, and now his administration is answering that call.

Speaker 6 And much of this fits with API's policy priorities. And we've already seen some of the biggest oil and gas companies reorient themselves from climate change concerns and back to fossil fuels.

Speaker 2 And Jeff, before we let you go, what are the next steps here?

Speaker 6 There just aren't many details in this announcement, but just that the EPA is going to reconsider these regulations.

Speaker 6 So assuming the typical process is followed, we should see some proposed rules, then comment periods before final rules. But you know, environmental groups already say court challenges are coming.

Speaker 2 That's Jeff Brady with NPR's Climate Desk. Jeff, thank you.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 2 President Trump sent a letter to Iran about opening new talks over its nuclear program.

Speaker 1 But the president says he won't rule out military options either.

Speaker 6 We're down to the final moments.

Speaker 6 We're at final moments. Can't let him have a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 2 Joining us now to explain Iran's response and what's at stake here is NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawi in Dubai. Aya, good morning to you.

Speaker 12 Good morning, Michelle.

Speaker 2 So let's start with this letter. Trump has said the letter to Iran would be proposing talks to avert nuclear talks to avert military action.
So what can you tell us about Iran's response so far?

Speaker 12 So this letter was delivered by a senior Emirati official from Abu Abu Dhabi who traveled to Tehran and met with Iran's foreign minister yesterday.

Speaker 12 But before it was even read by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni had this to say.

Speaker 12 So he's speaking to university students yesterday in televised remarks saying the U.S. is trying to deceive global public opinion with this letter and that Iran is not ready to negotiate.

Speaker 12 And referring to Trump, he says this is the same person who tore up and threw out a signed agreement. Now he's talking about Trump's decision in his first term as president to withdraw the U.S.

Speaker 12 from a nuclear deal that was reached under President Obama and included China, Russia, and European countries. That deal put caps on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions.

Speaker 12 So Khameni says, how could one possibly negotiate with such a person? And he warned Iran can defend itself against threats.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so he's referring here to what we call like Trump's maximum pressure campaign on Iran Iran in his first term. And it did ramp up tensions in the region where you are.

Speaker 2 So what can you tell us about how things are, where things stand right now?

Speaker 12 Well, despite how many sharp words, Michelle, Iran's mission to the United Nations struck a different tone, saying in a post on X that if the objective of negotiations is to address concerns about the potential of nuclear weapons, these discussions may be subject to consideration, but that Iran would not dismantle its peaceful nuclear program.

Speaker 12 And it's important to note here, Iran's position has been that its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes and that it's not interested in building a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 12 That said, since Trump scuttled the nuclear deal in 2018, Iran has been increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium, according to UN inspectors.

Speaker 12 But also, you know, the US and Israel, which has hit nuclear targets in Iran before, they're not the only countries involved here.

Speaker 12 The UK, France, and Germany have continued talks with Iran about its nuclear program.

Speaker 12 And tomorrow, China, Russia, and Iran are meeting in Beijing to discuss Iran's nuclear program and the sanctions that are crippling its economy.

Speaker 2 And what is the view there from the Gulf Arab states like the UAE, which is where you are?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 12 So the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, these Gulf Arab states are playing the role of mediator on many different files, whether that's on Iran or Ukraine, as we just heard from Charles, or in Gaza.

Speaker 12 And so the reason they can do this, though, is because while they view the U.S. as the most important military superpower, it's not the only player on the block.

Speaker 12 They've kept warm relations with Russia, for example, and it was China, if you recall, that brokered the deal that repaired ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia a few years ago.

Speaker 12 So they're balancing ties and they're super focused on their own economic growth right now. And so, yes, Saudi Arabia and the UAE want hard curbs on Iran's missile program and its nuclear ambitions.

Speaker 12 And they would like to see its Shia militias in the region wiped out.

Speaker 12 But they do not want a region on edge or the kind of attacks on oil targets in the Gulf that we saw under Trump's first term when tensions were soaring.

Speaker 2 That is Enflas Abatrawi in Dubai A. Thank you.

Speaker 12 Thanks, Michelle.

Speaker 2 And that's Up First for Thursday, March 13th. I'm Michelle Martin.

Speaker 1 And I'm A. Martinez.
Thanks for listening to Up First. You can find more in-depth coverage of the stories we talked about today and a lot more on NPR's Morning Edition.

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