WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Thursday rescinded a scientific finding that has long been a core basis for U.S. regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and action on climate change, the most aggressive move by a Republican president to roll back climate regulations.
The rule finalized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency repeals a 2009 government statement called a “hazard finding” that determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare.
The Obama administration’s harm findings are the legal basis for nearly all of the Clean Air Act’s climate regulations targeting motor vehicles, power plants and other sources of pollution that heat the planet.
President Donald Trump called the move “the largest deregulatory effort to date in American history,” while EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the harm finding “the holy grail of federal regulatory overreach.”
Trump called the finding of harm “one of the greatest hoaxes in history,” adding that it had “no basis in fact” or law. “On the contrary, over generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty around the world,” Trump said at the White House ceremony.
Experts say the move to repeal all greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks is certain to face legal challenges and could lead to broader disruptions to climate regulations for stationary energy sources such as power plants and oil and gas facilities. Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at the UCLA School of Law, said overturning the ruling would be “much more damaging” than other actions by the Trump administration to roll back dozens of environmental rules.
Environmental groups called the move the largest attack on federal authority on climate change in U.S. history. They say the evidence supporting the dangerous finding has grown stronger in the 17 years since it was approved.
The EPA also said it would propose delaying by two years Biden-era rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks. The agency will also end tax credits for automakers that install automatic start-stop ignition systems in their vehicles. The device is designed to reduce emissions, but Zeldin said “everyone hates” it.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman appointed by Trump to head the Environmental Protection Agency last year, criticized his predecessors in Democratic administrations, saying they were “willing to bankrupt the country” in the name of fighting climate change.
The discovery of harm “led to trillions of dollars in regulations that strangled entire sectors of the U.S. economy, including the U.S. auto industry,” Zeldin said. “The Obama and Biden administrations have used it to squeeze out a left-wing wish list that includes costly climate policies, electric vehicle mandates and other requirements that impact consumer choice and affordability.”
The hazard finding and the regulations based on it “not only regulated emissions, it regulated and targeted the American dream. Now the hazard finding has been eliminated,” Zeldin said.
Supreme Court upholds dangerous ruling
The Supreme Court ruled in a 2007 case that planet-warming greenhouse gases produced by the burning of oil and other fossil fuels are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
Since the high court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, courts have unanimously rejected legal challenges to hazardous findings, including a 2023 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Hazard findings are widely considered the legal basis for a raft of regulations aimed at preventing the growing threat from climate change. This includes deadly floods, extreme heat waves, catastrophic wildfires and other natural disasters in the United States and around the world.
Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who served as White House climate adviser in the Biden administration, called the Trump administration’s actions reckless. “EPA would rather spend its time in court working for the fossil fuel industry than protecting us from the escalating impacts of pollution and climate change,” she said.
McCarthy said the EPA has clear scientific and legal obligations to regulate greenhouse gases, adding that the health and environmental dangers of climate change “have become impossible to ignore.”
Dr. Lisa Patel, a pediatrician and executive director of the Alliance of Medical Societies for Climate and Health, said Trump’s actions “prioritize the profits of big oil and gas companies and polluters over clean air and water” and the health of children.
“As a result of this repeal, I will see more kids coming to the emergency room with asthma attacks and more babies being born prematurely,” she said in a statement. “My colleagues will see more heart disease and cancer among their patients.”
David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Trump and Zeldin are trying to use the repeal of the finding as a “killing blow” to invalidate nearly all of the government’s climate regulations. Repealing the finding could eliminate current restrictions on greenhouse gas pollution from cars, factories, power plants and other sources and could prevent future governments from proposing rules to address global warming.
The EPA’s action follows Trump’s executive order directing the agency to submit a report on the “legality and continued applicability” of hazardous findings. Conservatives and some congressional Republicans have long sought to repeal rules they say are overly restrictive and economically damaging to limit greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
Myron Ebell, a conservative activist who questions the science behind climate change, said withdrawing the dangerous findings “is the most important step the Trump administration has taken yet to restore energy and economic sanity.”
Exhaust emission restriction targets
Zeldin and Transport Minister Sean Duffy have moved to significantly reduce limits on emissions from cars and trucks. The rules implemented by Democratic President Joe Biden are intended to encourage U.S. automakers to produce and sell more electric vehicles. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States
The Trump administration announced a proposal in December to weaken vehicle mileage rules for the auto industry, easing regulatory pressure on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The EPA said a two-year delay in Biden-era rules on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks will give the agency time to develop a plan that better reflects the reality of slowing electric vehicle sales while promoting consumer choice and lowering prices.
The mileage plan will significantly reduce regulations on how far new cars need to travel per gallon of gasoline. Trump said the rule change will lower the price of new cars and increase Americans’ access to a full range of gasoline vehicles they need and can afford.
Environmental groups say the program will keep polluting gas-powered cars and trucks on U.S. roads for years to come, threatening the health of millions of Americans, especially children and the elderly.
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