The Trump administration is set to announce its plans to abolish the US government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, threatening to strike a deep blow at Washington’s ability to fight climate change.
The Environmental Protection Agency will unveil a proposal in Indiana on Tuesday to scrap a landmark determination that planet-warming gases endanger public health and welfare, the agency’s administrator, Lee Zeldin, said in a podcast. If finalized, the move would lay the foundation to unwind a host of regulations limiting emissions from power plants, oil wells and automobiles.
Rolling back the 2009 endangerment finding would be among the most far-reaching steps yet by President Donald Trump’s administration to gut US capacity to fight climate change. The finding forms the bedrock of the government’s authority to impose limits on carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. Ending it would be squarely at odds with the scientific consensus that those gases are causing climate change that’s already leading to rising seas and more intense storms.
“How big is the endangerment finding? Well repealing it will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America — resulting in over a trillion dollars in savings,” Zeldin said during an interview on the Ruthless Podcast that aired Tuesday.
The EPA’s proposal will also aim to end some automobile emission limits, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Environmentalists have argued that any move to reverse the endangerment finding not only bucks scientific conclusions about the ways carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases interact with the world’s atmosphere, but also imperils the planet. Efforts to restrain emissions now are critical to restraining the world’s temperature rise and avoiding more tipping points where the consequences of climate change are magnified.
“The endangerment finding is based on decades of established, proven scientific evidence and has been repeatedly affirmed by courts,” said National Wildlife Federation chief scientist Diane Pataki. “Overturning this decision directly contradicts the EPA’s mandate to protect public health and address the sources of greenhouse gas pollution that have caused the climate crisis.”
The Supreme Court effectively compelled the EPA to asses the impact of greenhouse gases in 2007 when it affirmed the agency’s authority to regulate them as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. At that point, it was up to the EPA to determine whether greenhouse gases constituted a threat that should be regulated.
Critics have argued Congress designed the Clean Air Act to regulate localized pollutants, not those with widespread, global effects. Some have been pushing for repeal of the endangerment finding ever since. A policy blueprint drafted by conservative groups and Trump loyalists known as Project 2025 recommended addressing the endangerment finding.