EPA Chief Pushes Trump to Reconsider Key Climate Change Reports

EPA Seeks Re-Consideration of Landmark Climate Change Conclusion, Potentially Impacting US Environmental Policy

The Trump administration has been asked in private by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to overturn a landmark scientific determination made in 2009 that has underpinned US climate policy. Obama's 2009 determination had concluded that climate change GHGs presented threats to public welfare and health. The determination had given legal justification to dozens of climate regulations, such as emissions rules on cars, power plants, and other polluters.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, at the request of an executive order from President Donald Trump, recommended replacing this crucial conclusion. That day-one directive directed the EPA to examine the legal foundation and ongoing relevance of the 2009 endangerment finding. Recommending reopening the finding is the newest step by the Trump administration in rewriting US environmental policy, namely that addressing climate change.

The 2009 endangerment finding, enacted under the Clean Air Act, has been the foundation of federal climate policy. It served as the basis for a range of regulations, from automobile and truck tailpipe emissions limits to power plants. Environmentalists have long viewed the finding as an essential measure in limiting carbon pollution, the most prevalent cause of global warming.

An EPA spokesperson would not validate the specifics of Zeldin's proposal, released in an Associated Press report. However, reports are that the action fits within the greater Trump administration agenda to roll back Obama-era climate policy. The president and others who have promoted the policies of the administration have been hostile toward climate change policy, some complaining the policies were too wasteful and costly.

The 2009 decision, were it to be overruled, would have far-reaching implications for the authority of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. If the EPA can at all succeed on the premise that GHGs pose no risk to public health, it would essentially strip the legal rationale from the majority of the existing and future climate regulations. This would essentially eliminate a lot of the federal government's ability to cut carbon pollution and stem the tide of climate change.

This move by the EPA is one in a list of moves by the Trump administration attempting to revisit and roll back a list of environmental protections initiated under the Obama administration. For instance, in the first term of Trump, his government dismantled the Endangerment Finding by putting out the directive to the EPA to reverse decisions made on its jurisdiction. Not rescinded, but in 2009 the resultant regulation measures created directly because of the finding were revoked in accordance with the new understanding of law.

Most significantly, the EPA's revision of its rule-making power by the EPA allowed the administration to replace the Clean Power Plan, a set of regulations that tried to limit pollution from coal-fired power plants, with the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, a regulation that eased the limits on coal plants. The change in rule was a complete about-face from the Obama-era more aggressive global warming policies.

Now that the science to justify US action against climate erosion, the White House is grappling with how intensely it will fight against the cornerstones of climate change. The environmentalists fear that reopening the 2009 determination for revision would give the window that would culminate in complete abolition of federal climate regulations and reverse years of achievement fighting climate change.

The scientific consensus on climate change, though, has not vanished. More than ever before, additional data affirm human activity, i.e., the combustion of fossil fuels, as the most powerful force behind global warming. Due to the actions of the Trump administration, green activists believe that undermining this scientific consensus would be a dangerous move.

The case for litigation against the 2009 EPA endangerment finding will be stronger with each few months passed. As much as the Trump administration may cling to its fantasy of changing or erasing climate regulation, the science and the environment constituencies must respond with stern calls that public health defense along with mitigating the effects of climate change will be number-one US policy priorities.

Conclusion:With the new administration reconsidering climate change policy, the fate of US environmental policy is on the line. The direction of this debate will have profound consequences for the country's capacity to curb global warming and safeguard public health.

Sources: Bloomberg