Officials said the changes wouldn’t impact air quality — a claim one former EPA leader disputed.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released a proposal to scrap the 15-year-old regulation that empowers the agency to curb greenhouse gas emissions — a move EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin billed as the “largest deregulatory action” in the nation’s history.
“Many, many, many mental leaps” went into the 2009 determination that high concentrations of six key greenhouse gases — emitted by vehicles — endanger public health, Zeldin said.
“We do not have that power on our own to decide, as an agency, that we are going to combat global climate change because we give ourselves that power,” he continued, speaking at an Indianapolis truck dealership.
If finalized, his proposal would strip the EPA’s authority to set standards for greenhouse gas emission regulations on motor vehicles and engines.
It would save more than $54 billion annually, according to a news release.
“The practical application is going to be lower-cost vehicles, lower-cost consumer products, lower energy bills, and all the things Americans instinctually want,” U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.
“I believe today will go down as a momentous day for freedom and liberty in our country, brought to you by President (Donald) Trump,” Wright added, to applause from rows of suit-clad attendees.
He and other officials celebrated the proposed recision from behind a logo-emblazoned lectern, as a glossy red truck towered in the background and industrial fans stirred the muggy air overhead.
They insisted that neither air nor water quality would suffer.
“Do not listen to those haters. The sky will not fall,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said. “We have the cleanest air, the cleanest water.”
Others disagree.
“I truly, honestly do not understand how they can say that the air and water and land will be just as clean under their policy view,” Indiana University Visiting Professor Janet McCabe told the Capital Chronicle. McCabe served in the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation during former President Barack Obama’s administration and was EPA deputy administrator under former President Joe Biden.
Several officials described the Obama-era endangerment finding as illegitimate and “creative.”
“It happened because they couldn’t do it through the House and the Senate and the presidency, the normal lawmaking process,” Wright said. “They found a backdoor way to take away your freedom and to make your life more expensive and shrink your life opportunities.”
McCabe rejected such arguments.
“There’s just no foundation for that at all. We were very thorough, very careful,” she said, noting that the endangerment finding was challenged in court and upheld.
McCabe said the criticism is “perhaps a way to deflect from the fact that this particular finding that they’re proposing to make now is going to be very hard to justify legally.”
Zeldin signed the proposed rule Tuesday. The agency will accept public comments on the proposal until Sept. 21.
Its possible impacts are unclear, but broad.
Asked about concerns the electric vehicle battery plants planned for Indiana would go elsewhere, Gov. Mike Braun called it a “great example of where government got ahead of common sense and even the marketplace.”
Health and economic impact
Despite the Trump EPA’s assertion that the move would save money for Americans, climate groups said the opposite was true, and that the finding would hurt access to alternative energy sources.
“The reason (Trump) is doing this is not scientific,” former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in an interview with States Newsroom. “It’s just his slavish devotion to his billionaire friends in the oil and gas industry that he wants to help, and destroy the ability of Americans to get clean and cheap — I want to emphasize cheap — electricity. This is not just a health issue. It’s a financial health issue, basically denying Americans the ability to get the most reasonably priced electricity in America.”
Inslee, a Democrat who sought his party’s presidential nomination in 2020 on a platform that emphasized climate issues, is a national spokesperson and executive with the advocacy group Climate Power.
“It’s a reckless move that will make Americans less safe and hurt our economy by slowing the growth of affordable clean energy and fueling the heat waves, storms, floods, and wildfires that threaten people’s homes and communities,” U.S. House Natural Resources ranking Democrat Jared Huffman, of California, said in a statement.
Democrats and environmental groups also argued the scientific evidence clearly showed greenhouse gas emissions were harmful.
“You can’t with a straight face argue that pollution is not endangering human health,” Inslee said. “Look at the deaths that are piling up. Flash floods and heat domes, asthma and cardiovascular events. This stuff is bad for human health. I don’t know how you can make the argument otherwise.”
Lawsuits ahead
Legal challenges from Democratic attorney generals are almost certainly imminent, Inslee said Tuesday afternoon.
“If a lawsuit hasn’t been filed yet, I’ll have to call (Washington Attorney General) Nick Brown and tell him to hurry up,” he said. “It’s been a couple hours now.”
In a statement, Brown said he would “consider all options if EPA continues down this cynical path. We won’t stand by as our children’s future is sacrificed to appease fossil fuel interests.”
Climate Change deniers should and will be held accountable for the destruction they are causing.