As the Trump administration prepares to overturn the rule underpinning virtually all US climate regulations, a Senate committee is investigating whether the US’s second-largest automaker lobbied for the rollback.
In September, the Senate environment and public works committee launched investigations into two dozen oil companies, thinktanks, law firms and trade associations, focused on how the companies may have persuaded the White House to initiate the repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding. Now, the committee, chaired by the Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse, is expanding the investigation to include Ford Motor Company.
“I write to seek clarification about comments that President Donald Trump made suggesting that Ford Motor Company – and you, specifically – have played a significant role in advocating for the repeal of long-settled rules and regulations meant to protect human health and the environment,” Whitehouse wrote in the letter to Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, sent on Thursday morning.
The move follows Trump’s tour of a Ford factory in Michigan earlier this month, when he was caught speaking about Farley on a live microphone. There, the president said that Farley often urged him to change green regulations. Gesturing at the CEO, Trump said: “He calls me all the time: ‘Can we get rid of this environmental piece of garbage?’” He did not name specific rules that Farley pushed him to rescind.
“Straight from Trump’s own mouth, we hear him boasting about working hand in glove with industry to unleash unchecked pollution on our communities,” Whitehouse told the Guardian.
The Guardian has contacted Ford Motor Company for comment.
The endangerment finding states that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare, allowing the EPA to limit heat-trapping pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Lee Zeldin said it would rescind the bedrock determination in July, sparking alarm from scientists, environmental advocates and public health experts.
“The only interests that will benefit from such a corrupt rollback of the endangerment finding, upheld twice by the supreme court, are polluters and their enablers,” said Whitehouse. “American families will pay the price with dirtier air, higher health costs, and a climate-change-fueled economic collapse.”
Ford has voiced its support for some emissions-cutting measures, pledging to zero out its own planet-heating pollution and publicly backing the Paris climate agreement. But the company – and Farley – has also pushed against climate rules.
When the Trump administration rolled back fuel economy standards last month, for instance, Farley praised the move, saying: “President Trump’s leadership in aligning fuel economy standards with market realities.” Ford has also remained a member of trade groups like the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers as it has opposed EPA rules.
The repeal is expected to be finalized soon, but the White House review process could take some time, Zeldin told E&E News on Friday.
