EPA moves to repeal landmark finding that allows ‘climate regulation’
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-epa-moves-repeal-landmark-finding-allows-climate-124173885
President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed revoking a scientific finding that’s long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change
By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday proposed revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.
The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule rescinds a 2009 declaration that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
The “endangerment finding” is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called for a rewrite of the endangerment finding in March as part of a series of environmental rollbacks announced at the same time in what Zeldin said was “the greatest day of deregulation in American history.” A total of 31 key environmental rules on topics from clean air to clean water and climate change would be rolled back or repealed under Zeldin’s plan.
He singled out the endangerment finding as “the Holy Grail of the climate change religion” and said he was thrilled to end it “as the EPA does its part to usher in the Golden Age of American success.”
The EPA also called for rescinding limits on tailpipe emissions that were designed to encourage automakers to build and sell more electric vehicles. The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
Three former EPA leaders have criticized Zeldin, saying his March proposal would endanger the lives of millions of Americans and abandon the agency’s dual mission to protect the environment and human health.
“If there’s an endangerment finding to be found anywhere, it should be found on this administration because what they’re doing is so contrary to what the Environmental Protection Agency is about,” Christine Todd Whitman, who led EPA under Republican President George W. Bush, said after Zeldin’s plan was made public.