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\n Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Sunday defended the Trump administration\u2019s move to repeal the so-called endangerment finding<\/a> that planet-warming pollution from fossil fuels<\/a> endangers human health.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cTo reach the 2009 endangerment finding, they relied on the most pessimistic views of the science. The great news is that a lot of the pessimistic views of the science in 2009 that was being assumed ended up not panning out,\u201d Zeldin said on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union.\u201d \u201cWe can rely on 2025 facts as opposed to 2009 bad assumptions.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The 2009 scientific finding<\/a> that human-caused climate change endangers human health and safety, which has served as EPA\u2019s basis for many of its significant regulations aiming to protect the environment and decrease climate pollution. If successful, the repeal could strip away the federal government\u2019s most powerful way<\/a> to control the country\u2019s planet-warming pollution and fight climate change.\n <\/p>\n \n The text of the administration\u2019s proposal to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding said that while greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise in the atmosphere, that rise has been \u201cdriven primarily by increased emissions from foreign sources,\u201d and has happened \u201cwithout producing the degree of adverse impacts to public health and welfare in the United States that the EPA anticipated in the 2009 Endangerment Finding.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The US is the world\u2019s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and historically has emitted<\/a> more planet-warming pollution than any other country. Many rigorous scientific findings since 2009 have showed both climate pollution and its warming effects are not just harming public health but killing people outright.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n In the nearly 16 years since the EPA first issued the Supreme Court-ordered endangerment finding, the world has warmed an additional 0.45 degrees Celsius (or 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit) to 1.4 degrees Celsius, according to climate scientist Zeke Hausfather.\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cBoth the scientific certainty around climate change and evidence of the dangers it is causing have grown stronger since 2009,\u201d Hausfather said in an email. \u201cThere is no evidence that has emerged or been published in the scientific literature in the past 16 years that would in any way challenge the scientific basis of the 2009 endangerment finding.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Pressed on whether he\u2019s skeptical of the scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions are the overwhelming driver of man-made climate change, Zeldin said, \u201cThat might be your way to try to twist my words.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The EPA is in a public comment period on its proposal to repeal all greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles, since they stem from the 2009 finding.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019re going through a public comment period. We want to make the right decision afterwards. But for people who want to sum up the 2009 endangerment finding as if they study carbon dioxide as an endangerment on human health, they did not do that,\u201d Zeldin told CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n Asked whether the EPA should have a role in trying to combat climate change, Zeldin said that the Supreme Court \u201cmade it very clear that I have to follow the law.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI have to follow the plain language of the law, and I can\u2019t get creative. So when you read through the 2009 endangerment finding, they say that where there\u2019s silence in the law, there\u2019s gaps that I should just be interpreting that as my own discretion. The Supreme Court has made it very clear that that is not what is a power that I have,\u201d he said, adding that drawing up such a regulation should be left to Congress.\n <\/p>\n \n CNN\u2019s Ella Nilsen and Andrew Freedman contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Sunday defended the Trump administration\u2019s move to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-315447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114966784395952632","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"EPA](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/gettyimages-2223548909.jpg\")
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