President Trump has moved to erase the legal foundation of nearly every federal effort to curb climate change in the US. At the White House on Thursday, Trump announced the end of the Environmental Protection Agency's 2009 "endangerment finding," the scientific determination that greenhouse gases pose a risk to Americans' health and welfare, the New York Times reports. That finding has been the legal backbone for regulating carbon dioxide, methane, and other planet-warming gases from cars, power plants, oil and gas wells, and factories. Without it, much of Washington's climate rulebook effectively loses its anchor, reports the BBC.
"We are officially terminating the so-called 'endangerment finding,'" Trump said, calling it a "disastrous Obama-era policy" and deriding climate initiatives as the "Green New Scam." EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin labeled the move "the single largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States," with the administration claiming—without detailing its math—that it will save businesses about $1 trillion.
- The decision effectively declares that climate change does not legally qualify as a threat the government must address under the Clean Air Act. The move reverses a position accepted by Republican and Democratic administrations alike for decades and sharply departs from mainstream climate science. The Times reports that the administration is "essentially saying that the vast majority of scientists around the world are wrong and that a hotter planet is not the menace that decades of research shows it to be."
- The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that repealing the finding could add up to 18 billion metric tons of US emissions by 2055—around triple last year's output—and contribute to tens of thousands of premature deaths and millions of additional asthma attacks. Scientists say rising greenhouse gases are driving more intense heat waves, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods.
- The White House said the move would bring down costs for automakers by around $2,400 per car, though environmental groups were skeptical about the savings claims, the BBC reports. Peter Zalzal from the Environmental Defense Fund said it would cost Americans $1.4 trillion in "additional fuel costs to power these less efficient and higher polluting vehicles."
- The administration argues that the Clean Air Act only permits regulation of pollution that causes direct, near-source harm, a standard that would exclude global-warming gases that accumulate in the atmosphere. That reading would not only scrap current rules, such as auto tailpipe standards aimed at boosting electric vehicles, but also make it far harder for future presidents to restore climate regulations, the Times reports.
- Some industry groups have backed rolling back vehicle rules but warned that eliminating the endangerment finding outright could trigger a patchwork of tougher state-level policies. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will continue to regulate emissions and "will sue to challenge this illegal action."
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