President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday proposed revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.
The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule would rescind a 2009 declaration that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
The “endangerment finding” is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the proposed rule change on a podcast ahead of an official announcement set for Tuesday in Indiana.
Repealing the endangerment finding “will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America,” Zeldin said on the Ruthless podcast.
“There are people who, in the name of climate change, are willing to bankrupt the country,” Zeldin said. “They created this endangerment finding and then they are able to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary sources, to basically regulate out of existence, in many cases, a lot of segments of our economy. And it cost Americans a lot of money.”
