JP: ‘EPA Unveils Plan…to severely weaken Washington’s ability to fight climate change’ – Morano: Trump admin ‘removes the basis for all the climate nonsense that we’ve had to endure’

https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/epa-unveils-plan-to-scrap-us-authority-to-regulate-greenhouse-gases

EPA Unveils Plan to Scrap US Authority to Regulate Greenhouse Gases – The Trump administration is formally proposing to scrap the US government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases as an air pollutant, a move that sets the stage to severely weaken Washington’s ability to fight climate change.

The Trump administration is formally proposing to scrap the US government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases as an air pollutant, a move that sets the stage to severely weaken Washington’s ability to fight climate change.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday unveiled a proposal to abolish the landmark determination that planet-warming gases endanger public health and welfare. If finalized, the measure would lay the foundation to unwind a host of regulations limiting emissions from power plants, oil wells and automobiles.

Rolling back the 2009 endangerment finding would be among the most far-reaching steps yet by President Donald Trump’s administration to gut US capacity to fight climate change. The finding forms the bedrock of the government’s authority to impose limits on carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. Ending it would be squarely at odds with the scientific consensus that those gases are causing climate change that’s already leading to rising seas and more intense storms.

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Environmentalists have argued that any move to reverse the endangerment finding not only bucks scientific conclusions about the ways carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases interact with the world’s atmosphere, but also imperils the planet. Efforts to limit emissions now are critical to restraining the world’s temperature rise and avoiding more tipping points in which the consequences of climate change are magnified.

“As Americans reel from deadly floods and heat waves, the Trump administration is trying to argue that the emissions turbocharging these disasters are not a threat,” said Christy Goldfuss, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It boggles the mind and endangers the nation’s safety and welfare.”

Some conservatives have argued that Congress designed the Clean Air Act to regulate localized pollutants, not those with widespread, global effects. Critics have been pushing for repeal of the endangerment finding ever since.

“It removes the basis for all the climate nonsense that we’ve had to endure for the last several decades,” said Marc Morano, who runs the climate-skeptic website ClimateDepot.com. “The Trump administration’s goal is to ensure that future presidential administrations can’t quickly reverse climate and energy policies without having to undergo major bureaucratic hurdles.”

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