The United States has withdrawn a scientific discovery that has long been a central basis for its actions to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.
Thursday’s decision is the President’s most aggressive move yet Donald Trump Withdrawal of environmental regulations from the start of his second term.
Recommended stories
3 List of itemsEnd of list
Under his leadership, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a 2009 rule to repeal a government declaration known as a “false discovery.”
Almost all climate regulations have a legal basis under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants, and other sources of pollution that warm the planet.
Established under the presidency of Democrat Barack Obama, it found that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare.
But Republican President Trump is called Climate change is a “fraud” and a “hoax”. The discovery of Jeopardy, he argued, was “one of the biggest scandals in history” and had “no basis in fact” or law.
“In contrast, over generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people around the world out of poverty,” Trump said at a White House ceremony on Thursday.
He hailed the repeal of the endangerment finding as “the single largest regulatory action in American history.”
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who also attended the ceremony, described the threat finding as “the holy grail of federal regulatory overreach.”
Revocation of the hazard finding repeals all greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and trucks. It could also broaden climate regulation at stationary sources like power plants and oil and gas facilities, experts say.
But Thursday’s new rule is likely to shake up the US judicial system.
Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law, told The Associated Press that overturning the findings would cause “more havoc” than any other actions Trump has taken to roll back environmental regulations.
Environmental groups have described the move as the single biggest attack in US history against federal authority to address it Climate change. The evidence supporting the dangerousness finding has grown stronger in the 17 years since its approval, he said.
As part of Thursday’s decision, the EPA also announced it would end tax credits for automakers that install automatic start-stop ignition systems in their vehicles. The device is intended to reduce emissions, but Zeldin said “everyone hates it”.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman who was tapped by Trump to lead the EPA last year, has criticized his Democratic predecessors, saying they are “ready to bankrupt the country” in the name of tackling climate change.
The Detection of danger “He led trillions of dollars in regulations that strangled entire sectors of the United States economy, including the American auto industry,” Zeldin said, specifically criticizing the leadership of Obama and former President Joe Biden.
“The Obama and Biden administrations used it to push through a left-wing list of costly climate policies, electric vehicle mandates and other requirements that attack consumer choice and affordability.”
The threat detection allowed for a series of regulations aimed at protecting against climate change and related threats.
These include deadly floods, Extreme heat wavesCatastrophic wildfires and other natural disasters in the US and around the world.
Former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, who served as a White House climate adviser in the Biden administration, called the Trump administration’s actions reckless.
“This EPA would rather spend its time working in court for the fossil fuel industry than protecting us from the increasing effects of pollution and climate change,” she said.
The EPA has a clear scientific and legal responsibility to regulate greenhouse gases, McCarthy explained, adding that the health and environmental risks of climate change have become “impossible to ignore.”
Thursday’s EPA action follows an executive order from Trump that directed the agency to submit a report “on the legality and continued applicability” of the threat finding.
Conservatives have long sought to undo overly restrictive and economically damaging regulations to limit greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Democratic Senator Ed Mark It should have been a “no-brainer” to keep looking for danger.
“Trump and Zeldin are putting our lives and our future at risk,” he said in a video statement.
“They have withdrawn protection after protection in a race to the bottom. Instead of ‘let them eat cake,’ Zeldin is saying, ‘let them breathe soot'”