The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is about to pull the rug from underneath climate regulation by repealing the so-called endangerment finding—an EPA decision from 2009 saying greenhouse gases “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”
The decision names six gases as dangerous, including carbon dioxide and methane, on which much of climate regulation in the United States since 2009 has focused, notably tailpipe emission regulations and power plant emission reduction requirements. Bloomberg reported that the repeal could be announced as soon as Wednesday, citing an unnamed source.
The Wall Streete Journal reported that the repeal would effectively remove all current requirements for tracking, reporting, and aiming to reduce emissions of the six gases included in the 2009 finding. “This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,” EPA’s head, Lee Zeldin, told the Wall Street Journal.
The publication, however, noted the repeal would not remove emission regulations from power plants although, according to unnamed sources, it would create an opportunity for repealing those regulations as well.
The EPA has called the endangerment finding “one of the most damaging decisions in modern history.” Environmentalist organizations, on the other hand, are preparing to fight the repeal in court, saying the endangerment finding was essential for advancing climate change policies. Per the Environmental defense Fund, the repeal of the endangerment finding would “eliminate some of our most vital tools to protect people from the pollution that causes climate change,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Trump administration has prioritized the rollback of climate change-related regulations from the Obama and Biden presidencies, on the grounds that energy supply security and abundance trumps attempts to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The current federal government also opposes the hypothesis that climate change is an existential threat.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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