Trump Plans to Repeal the Finding That Lets the EPA Regulate Climate-Warming Emissions |
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Donald Trump, and EPA administrator Lee Zeldin at a rally in 2024.Erin Clark/The Boston Globe/Getty
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
In what is set to be its most audacious anti-environment move yet, the Trump administration on Thursday will roll back the mechanism allowing the government to regulate planet-heating pollution, the White House press secretary has told reporters.
“President Trump will be joined by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to formalize the recession of the 2009 Obama-era endangerment finding,” Karoline Leavitt said at a press conference on Tuesday. “This will be the largest deregulatory action in American history.”
The finding determined that CO2 and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, establishing a legal basis to regulate them under the Clean Air Act. Its overturning would be a “devastating blow to millions of Americans facing growing risks of unnatural disasters,” said Meredith Hankins, federal climate legal director at the environmental advocacy nonprofit National Resources Defense Council.
“Trump and Zeldin are telling our families: we’ll let you get sicker and watch your........