General Relativity (GR) combined with the existing action for the trace anomaly is an inconsistent low energy effective field theory. 

This issue is addressed by extending GR into a certain scalar-tensor theory, which preserves the GR trace anomaly equation, up to 

higher order corrections. The extension introduces a new mass scale -- assumed to be below the Planck scale -- that governs four 

high dimensional terms in a local diff-invariant trace anomaly action. Such terms can be kept, while an infinite number of Planck-suppressed 

invariants are neglected. The resulting theory maintains two derivative equations of motion. In a certain approximation it reduces to the 

conformal Galileon, which could have physical consequences.