EPA seeks to cancel scientific basis for climate regulations
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Aerial view of Jon Amos Power plant in West Virginia shows smoke stacks and cooling. Photo: Visions of America/Joseph Sohm/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Tuesday he's issuing draft plans to overturn the agency's 2009 scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare — a move guaranteed to spark litigation.
Why it matters: It's President Trump's most direct effort to rip out climate regulations root and branch — and make it harder for a successor to impose new ones.
- The "endangerment finding" provides a key legal underpinning for regulating heat-trapping gases from cars, power plants and more under the Clean Air Act.
Driving the news: "This has been referred to as basically driving a dagger into the heart of the climate change religion," Zeldin said on Ruthless, the popular conservative podcast where he announced the plan.
- EPA first signaled in March that it would attempt to overturn the decision.
The agency is pairing it with a proposal that, if finalized, would remove greenhouse gas standards for light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and heavy-duty engines.
- Those removals would start with the first greenhouse gas set in 2010 for light-duty vehicles as well as those set in 2011 for medium-duty vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles and engines.
- "The trucking industry supports cleaner, more efficient technologies, but we need policies rooted in real-world conditions," American Trucking Association President and CEO Chris Spear said in an EPA news release.
Catch up quick: EPA issued the finding in response to a landmark 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
- The ruling led then-President Obama in 2009 to issue an order allowing EPA to establish emissions standards for sources shown to reasonably affect health and welfare.
- Zeldin has said the decision stipulated that EPA was authorized — but not obligated — to regulate greenhouse gases.
The big picture: Researchers and environmentalists have warned ahead of the proposal that it conflicts with the scientific consensus on the unfolding harms from climate change.
- "It is callous, dangerous and a breach of our government's responsibility to protect the American people from this devastating pollution," the Environmental Defense Fund said ahead of the long-expected plan.
- And Dan Becker of the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement Tuesday: "By revoking this key scientific finding Trump is putting fealty to Big Oil over sound science and people's health."
State of play: Zeldin argued that he's in favor of less pollution, and cast emissions rules as a distraction, saying "this is an economic issue."
- "We want clean air, land and water. Conservatives love the environment, want to be good stewards of the environment," he said.
- But he alleged there are people who want to "bankrupt the country" in the name of battling climate change.
Friction point: Zeldin said the agency welcomes a battle over what he called faulty conclusions about climate harms. The EPA administrator would make the final determination after a public comment period.
- "We're going to go out to public comment. We're not afraid of allowing the public to weigh in," Zeldin said.
What we're watching: Certain legal battles if and when EPA finalizes the draft proposal after the comment period.
- Opponents of EPA's greenhouse gas regulations "might be able to fast-track their elimination by bringing lawsuits alleging that — without an underlying endangerment finding — the rules are arbitrary and capricious," ClearView Energy Partners said earlier this year.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with further information about the vehicle climate rule proposal.
