WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday revoked a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the most aggressive move by the Republican president to roll back climate regulations.
The rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency rescinds a 2009 government declaration known as the endangerment finding that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. The Obama-era finding is the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.
The repeal eliminates all greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks and could unleash a broader undoing of climate regulations on stationary sources such as power plants and oil and gas facilities, experts say. Legal challenges are near certain.
President Donald Trump called the move “the single largest deregulatory action in American history, by far,” while EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the endangerment finding “the Holy Grail of federal regulatory overreach.”
Top Illinois Democrats, including U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, joined 47 other Senate Democrats last September to oppose the Trump administration’s effort to roll back the foundational climate rule.
“This disastrous decision reverses decades of progress and ignores decades of legal and scientific precedent, and its negative impacts won’t just be felt immediately, but for generations to come as well,” the U.S. Senate Environmental Justice Caucus, which Duckworth co-chairs, said in a statement. “It’s yet another Trump-created disaster for American families, all to line his billionaire donors’ pocketbooks, as Americans pay the price.”
The Sierra Club filed the original lawsuit that established the scientific finding more than 20 years ago. Jack Darin, director of the Illinois chapter of the environmental advocacy organization, said that state action is more relevant than ever.
“Illinois must continue to lead the way,” he said.
Trump called the endangerment finding “one of the greatest scams in history,” claiming falsely that it “had no basis in fact” or law. “On the contrary, over the generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty all over the world,” Trump said at a White House ceremony, although scientists across the globe agree that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are driving catastrophic heat waves and storms, droughts and sea level rise.
Environmental groups described the move as the single biggest attack in U.S. history against federal authority to address climate change. Evidence backing up the endangerment finding has only grown stronger in the 17 years since it was approved, they said.
“This action will only lead to more climate pollution, and that will lead to higher costs and real harms for American families,” said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund, adding that the consequences would be felt on Americans’ health, property values, water supply and more.
Matthew Daly is an Associated Press writer. Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco is WBEZ Environment reporter, Grist.
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