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On Thursday, February 12, the Trump administration erased the scientific finding that underpinned the federal government’s legal power to combat climate change for nearly two decades.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced the repeal of the 2009 “endangerment finding,” the EPA determination that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare.
With this decision, the federal government’s legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide, methane, and other planet-warming pollution from vehicles, power plants, and oil and gas operations.
At the White House, Trump said, “This is about as big as it gets” flanked by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
“We are officially terminating the so-called endangerment finding a disastrous Obama-era policy,” Trump added.
The finding was first established under the Clean Air Act and has been the legal bedrock for virtually every federal climate regulation since 2009.
With its repeal, the EPA can no longer limit emissions from the nation’s largest sources of climate pollution, even as scientists warn of accelerating heat waves, wildfires, drought, and extreme weather.
The repeal, termed the “Holy Grail” of what Zeldin called the “climate change religion,” is contingent, from a legal standpoint, upon the notion that Congress never authorized the regulation of greenhouse gases and that the Obama and Biden administrations exceeded their grant of power.
Zeldin said: “If Congress didn’t authorise it, EPA shouldn’t be doing it. If Congress wants EPA to regulate the heck out of greenhouse gases, then Congress can clearly make that the law.”
However, critics called the move a catastrophic abdication of duty.
Manish Bapna, President of the Natural Resource Defense Council, “this is a knockout punch in the yearslong fight by oil, gas and coal interests to stop America’s transition to clean energy. The science and the law are crystal clear.”
Legal challenges are currently in progress. The American Lung Association announced they plan to file suit against the decision.
The “repeal is unlawful,” according to them. Environmental legal experts believe that the Supreme Court has “repeatedly and expressly recognised” the power of the EPA in past rulings, including as recently as 2022.
If upheld, the repeal would make it impossible for the EPA to regulate carbon emissions forever and would prevent any future administration from being able to restore those powers without an act of Congress.
“We will see them in court, and we will win,” Bapna said.
