Trump's EPA to roll back cornerstone of climate action |
The administration of US President Donald Trump is forging ahead with a plan to revoke a scientific finding that's long been the cornerstone of US climate action.
Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who along with Trump has called for the "death of the Green New Scam," unveiled the move at a car dealership in the US state of Indiana on Tuesday, hailing it as "the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States."
At the heart of the rollback is the Obama-era 2009 endangerment finding, grounded in the landmark Supreme Court case Massachusetts v. EPA. That ruling established the EPA has authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants — a legal foundation for US efforts to curb emissions.
If the endangerment finding is thrown out, the EPA would lose its ability to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases, a move experts warn would represent a "radical pivot in American climate and energy policy."
"It represents a complete US step away from renewable energy and energy efficiency in favor of full embrace of expanded production and use of fossil fuels, including coal, oil and natural gas," Barry Rabe, environmental and public policy professor at the University of Michigan, told DW.
The second Trump administration is acting more aggressively in just about everything than the first,........