Washington The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency has quietly encouraged the Trump administration to reevaluate a scientific finding that has long served as the cornerstone of U.S. action against climate change, potentially marking a historic move.
According to four people briefed on the issue, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the recommendation is not public, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called for a rewriting of the agency’s conclusion that determined planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare in a report to the White House.
The 2009 Clean Air Act ruling serves as the legal foundation for numerous climate policies pertaining to power plants, automobiles, and other sources of pollution.
Zeldin’s suggestion, which was made last week in accordance with an executive order issued by Republican President Donald Trump, was not disclosed by an EPA official on Wednesday. On Trump’s first day in office, the order instructed the EPA to provide a report on the endangerment finding’s validity and ongoing application.
Zeldin has lobbied the White House to overturn the endangerment decision, according to the Washington Post.
According to Steve Milloy, a former Trump transition adviser who challenges conventional wisdom on climate change, the Obama-era discovery is the cornerstone of federal policies for what the president and I refer to as the climate hoax.
“Everything EPA does on climate goes away if you pull this (finding) out,” Milloy told the AP.
During a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump said Zeldin informed him that he was taking steps to fire roughly 65% of the EPA’s employees. Trump claimed that many people were only obstructionists who weren’t carrying out their duties.
Another former Trump transition adviser who has questioned the science underlying climate change, Myron Ebell, expressed his excitement on Wednesday at Zeldin’s apparent endangerment recommendation.
Removing it is a difficult but crucial step, according to Ebell, who also stated that it is the foundation of all the economically detrimental regulations governing carbon dioxide.
Any attempt to overturn or reverse the endangerment determination would be a difficult undertaking with little likelihood of success, according to legal experts and environmental organizations.
According to climate researcher David Doniger of the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, this would be a fool’s errand. It is inconceivable to believe that the EPA could produce a contradicting conclusion that would hold up in court given the vast body of scientific evidence.
Trump may see a repeal of the endangerment finding as a “kill shot” that would enable him to declare all climate policies unconstitutional, according to Doniger, who has frequently criticized what he describes as a “green new scam” promoted by Democrats and environmentalists.
“But it’s a real long shot for them,” he continued, adding that courts have consistently maintained the EPA’s Clean Air Act jurisdiction to regulate greenhouse gas pollution.
According to Peter Zalzal, a senior lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, another environmental organization, the order to reexamine the endangerment finding is cynical and extremely worrisome given the overwhelming body of scientific evidence that supports the finding, the catastrophic climate harms that Americans are currently facing, and EPA’s obvious duty to protect Americans’ health and welfare. The directive comes directly from Project 2025.
One suggestion in Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page plan for a hard-right shift in American politics and society, is to reexamine the endangerment finding.
Prior to being appointed to the EPA position, Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from Long Island, New York, had no environmental background but has been a longstanding Trump ally. He argued with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on a Supreme Court ruling that resulted in the endangerment finding during his January confirmation hearing.
According to the court’s 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, the EPA is authorized by the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants. Zeldin criticized Markey’s claim that the ruling constituted a mandate for the EPA to safeguard public health from climate pollution.
Zeldin informed Markey that while the ruling permits the EPA to take action on greenhouse gasses, it does not mandate it. To create an obligation, the EPA would need to take certain actions.
Any attempt to overturn the endangerment finding would cause greater chaos, according to Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the UCLA School of Law. This is part of the administration’s larger plan to overwhelm the area with erratic instructions and acts.
According to Carlson, the data is unmistakable that greenhouse gas emissions have caused the globe to warm to the point where it seems we have beyond the 1.5 Celsius threshold established by the international community in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Hotter temperatures, more frequent droughts, more severe flooding, stronger hurricanes, and more intense wildfires are all signs of climate change that are being felt locally and globally, she added.
“The chaos will occur sooner and more widely if the endangerment finding is overturned,” she said.
Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, described the EPA’s action as the latest example of Republican climate denial. Since they can no longer deny that climate change is occurring, they are acting as though it is not a threat, even though there is ample scientific evidence that it is maybe the biggest threat facing humanity today.
Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University, adding that it is absurd to believe that greenhouse gases do not pose a threat to public health and welfare by producing climate change. Life as we knew it in the previous century is already being disrupted by climate change brought on by greenhouse gas pollution, and much worse is likely to happen. Any other belief is a fantasy.
The Associated Press
