EPA to review landmark 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health
The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday said it would "formally reconsider" a landmark 2009 finding by the agency that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health.
The announcement was one of a flurry of actions by the EPA to roll back a wide swath of environmental regulations, including rules on pollution from coal-fired power plants and electric vehicles. The EPA's announcements also included narrowing the definition of waterways such as wetlands and streams that are protected under the Clean Water Act.
The decisions start what is likely to be a years-long effort to repeal or revise dozens of environmental rules, with 31 earmarked in all, including those involving:
- Wastewater discharges for oil and gas extraction facilities
- Oil and gas industry reporting through a greenhouse gas program
- Rules governing coal ash and coal-fired power plants
- National air quality standards for particulate matter
- Emission standards for industrial air pollutants
- Rules to reduce air pollution that causes haze
- Regulations restricting vehicle emissions
"We are driving a dagger through the heart of the climate-change religion and ushering in America's Golden Age," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. "Today is the most consequential day of deregulation in American history," the EPA head wrote in the piece.
Long a basis for U.S. action to fight climate change, the EPA's "endangerment finding" found that planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The Obama-era determination under the Clean Air Act underlies the legal arguments for a slew of climate regulations for vehicles and other sources of pollution.
Specifically, the agency in 2009 found that six greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere — carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride — posed a health risk to current and future generations. The EPA also said that motor vehicle emissions endangered public health.
"After 16 years, EPA will formally reconsider the Endangerment Finding," Zeldin said in a statement on Wednesday. "The Trump Administration will not sacrifice national prosperity, energy security, and the freedom of our people for an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas."
The EPA also is moving to eliminate all positions at the agency focused on diversity, equity and inclusion and environmental justice. Zeldin said in a March 11 memo that the action is in response to Mr. Trump's executive order on "ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferences," as well as two other executive actions.
Climate experts blast EPA
Climate change experts immediately criticized the wide-ranging move to strike down environmental protections and suggested the effort will face legal challenges.
"In the face of overwhelming science, it's impossible to think that the EPA could develop a contradictory finding that would stand up in court," said David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania dismissed the EPA's action as "just the latest form of Republican climate denial. They can no longer deny climate change is happening, so instead they're pretending it's not a threat, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that it is, perhaps, the greatest threat that we face today."
