What is the administration doing?<\/p>\n
The endangerment finding, enshrined in 2009, found that greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health. It followed a 2007 supreme court ruling which found such gases were pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n
The finding has long been a target for elimination by climate deniers. Democratic administrations used it and \u201ctwisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year\u201d, according to Zeldin.<\/p>\n
The proposed undoing of the finding followed Trump\u2019s January executive order on \u201cUnleashing American Energy\u201d, which directed the agency to submit a report \u201con the legality and continuing applicability\u201d of the endangerment finding.<\/p>\n
It comes as part of Trump\u2019s \u201cdrill, baby, drill\u201d agenda, which aims to boost already booming fossil-fuel production. Along with the scrapping of the endangerment finding, the EPA said it will kill off regulations limiting pollution coming from cars and will stymie a rule that curbs the amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, spewing from oil and gas drilling operations.<\/p>\n
Officials have laid out an array of legal justifications for the rollback. The main one rests on the idea that the Clean Air Act provides authority to regulate \u201cair pollution that endangers public health or welfare through local or regional exposure\u201d \u2013 but not emissions that warm the planet.<\/p>\n
Zealan Hoover, former senior adviser to the EPA administrator, said that argument does not pass muster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate any air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Trump administration is staking out the extreme position that climate pollution does not harm the physical or financial health of Americans. That flies in the face of decades of scientific research and the firsthand experience of millions facing sea level rise, extreme heat, floods and fires.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EPA is also using the so-called \u201cmajor questions doctrine\u201d as an argument for the rollback, said Michael Gerrard, a professor of environmental and energy law at Columbia Law School and faculty chair of Columbia\u2019s Earth Institute. Embraced by conservative justices, it says congressional authorization is needed for action on issues of broad importance and societal impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re saying that, regardless of what the text of the Clean Air Act may say, the endangerment finding is so economically and politically significant that the EPA can\u2019t issue it without explicit congressional authorization,\u201d said Gerrard.<\/p>\n
In a 150-page report also published on Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DoE) also laid out a separate argument for the move, which attempts to undercut the scientific consensus on the climate crisis. Experts say it relies on misleading scientific claims, such as the idea that carbon is beneficial for agriculture, which downplays research suggesting climate-driven extreme weather damages crop yields, and the debunked idea that extreme cold is more dangerous than extreme heat.<\/p>\n
Reached for comment, a Department of Energy spokesperson, Ben Dietderich, said: \u201cThis report critically assesses many areas of ongoing scientific inquiry that are frequently assigned high levels of confidence \u2013 not by the scientists themselves but by the political bodies involved, such as the United Nations or previous presidential administrations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UN<\/a> and the US<\/a> have regularly convened top scientists to produce scientific climate reports, which warn that urgent action to curb emissions is needed. Last week, the secretary general of the UN, Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, gave a speech in which he said the world is on the brink of a breakthrough in the climate fight and fossil fuels are running out of road.<\/a><\/p>\n What could the impact of the Trump administration\u2019s move be?<\/p>\n In its proposal, the EPA claimed eliminating US carbon pollution \u201cwould not have a scientifically measurable impact\u201d on the global climate, on public health.<\/p>\n But by warming the planet and increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events like wildfires and floods, greenhouse gas emissions pose grave threats to society, said Mann.<\/p>\n \u201cIt isn\u2019t remotely credible to argue that carbon pollution isn\u2019t a major, if not the greatest, threat now to human health,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n With the proposed change, \u201cthe EPA is telling us in no uncertain terms that US efforts to address climate change are over\u201d, said Abigail Dillen, president of the environmental legal non-profit Earthjustice.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the industries that contribute most to climate change, the message is: pollute more,\u201d she said. \u201cFor everyone feeling the pain of climate disasters, the message is: you\u2019re on your own.\u201d<\/p>\n Though the rollback aims to create a regulatory environment friendly to fossil fuels, it could, ironically, also threaten oil companies\u2019 attempts to fend off lawsuits aiming to hold them accountable for the climate crisis. To fight some challenges by cities and states, companies have argued that because the EPA regulates greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, those suits should be void. Throwing out EPA\u2019s ability to regulate those emissions could leave energy companies open to further challenges.<\/p>\n \u201cI know that industry groups have been asking the Trump folks not to reverse the endangerment finding,\u201d Jeff Holmstead, of the oil and gas law firm Bracewell, told E&E News<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n What happens next?<\/p>\n Zeldin\u2019s proposed rulemaking on the endangerment finding initiated a 45-day comment period, when the public will be able to weigh in on the proposed change.<\/p>\n \u201cEPA will then have to respond to the comments, make any necessary changes, and issue the rule in final form,\u201d said Gerrard, of Columbia.<\/p>\n The final rule is expected to be met with an onslaught of lawsuits, which will go to the DC federal appeals court. The losers of those cases \u2013 either the government or the challengers \u2013 are expected to take them to the supreme court.<\/p>\n Shaun Goho, legal director at the pollution-focused nonprofit Clean Air Task Force, said the proposal was \u201cunlawful\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cGreenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and the climate, and the Clean Air Act mandates that EPA regulates harmful air pollution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n