Trump administration plans to strip EPA of authority to establish regulations concerning climate-related emissions
In a move that has sparked controversy, the Trump administration has proposed to repeal a 2009 scientific finding that human-caused climate change endangers human health and safety. This proposal, if successful, could strip away the federal government's most powerful way to control the country's planet-warming pollution and fight climate change.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under Trump-appointed Administrator Lee Zeldin, announced the proposed repeal. Zeldin, in his defense, described climate change as dogma rather than science and referred to the endangerment finding as the "largest deregulatory action in the history of America." He spoke about it on a conservative podcast.
However, critics—including climate scientists and environmental groups—argue this move is rooted in climate denial and cherry-picking selective or fringe studies. They maintain that the repeal would legally free the government from regulating greenhouse gases, undermining key climate policies aimed at protecting health and the environment.
The endangerment finding, first issued by the EPA in 2009, is the scientific determination that greenhouse gases, including those from human activities, threaten public health and safety by contributing to climate change. The finding has served as the basis of many of the EPA's most significant regulations to protect human health and the environment, and decrease climate pollution from cars, power plants, and the oil and gas industry.
Since the issuance of the 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. Numerous international and US scientific findings have found "increasingly incontrovertible evidence" that humans are causing global warming by burning oil, gas, and coal. The world is at a dangerous threshold, with individual years, including 2024, exceeding the 1.5-degree guardrail laid out in the Paris Agreement.
Many rigorous scientific findings since 2009 have shown that climate pollution and its warming effects are killing people outright. For instance, increased extreme heat, flooding, and other climate impacts harm public health. Zeldin, on the other hand, stated that the human health finding was "an oversimplified, I would say inaccurate, way to describe it."
If the repeal is successful, it could lead to a significant rollback in federal climate protections established since 2009. This rollback has drawn widespread criticism and is expected to face legal challenges up to the Supreme Court. The repeal proposal seeks to overturn the science-based legal basis confirming that human-generated greenhouse gases endanger public health and safety.
Rene Marsh contributed reporting.
[1] EPA. (2009). Endangerment Finding. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/endangerment-finding-greenhouse-gases-and-climate-change [2] White House. (2009). Fact Sheet: The President's Climate Action Plan. Retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2013/06/25/fact-sheet-president-s-climate-action-plan [3] Union of Concerned Scientists. (2018). The Endangerment Finding: A Critical Legal Foundation for Climate Action. Retrieved from https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/endangerment-finding-critical-legal-foundation-climate-action [4] National Resource Defense Council. (2018). The Endangerment Finding: A Legal Basis for Climate Action. Retrieved from https://www.nrdc.org/stories/endangerment-finding-legal-basis-climate-action
- The controversial proposal by the Trump administration to repeal the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which acknowledges human-caused climate change as a threat to public health and safety, could potentially weaken key environmental policies and laws, according to critics who argue this move is deeply rooted in climate denial.
- In the realm of environmental science and policy-and-legislation, the Endangerment Finding serves as the scientific foundation for numerous significant regulations aimed at protecting human health and the environment, and reducing climate pollution from various sectors, including cars, power plants, and the oil and gas industry.
- The proposed repeal of the Endangerment Finding, if successful, would face an onslaught of criticism from climate scientists, environmental groups, and even general news outlets, as it could be seen as an attempt to disregard established science and weaken climate change policies, with potential legal repercussions reaching up to the Supreme Court.
