On Thursday, February 12, the Trump administration erased the scientific finding that underpinned the federal government’s legal power to combat climate change for nearly two decades.
US President Donald Trump announced the repeal of the 2009 “hazard finding,” the EPA’s determination that greenhouse gases threaten human health and well-being.
With this decision, the federal government loses legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide, methane and other planet-warming pollutants from vehicles, power plants and oil and gas operations.
At the White House, Trump said, “This is as big as it gets,” flanked by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
“We are officially ending the so-called danger by finding a disastrous Obama-era policy,” Trump added.
The finding was first established under the Clean Air Act and has been the legal basis for virtually all federal climate regulations since 2009.
With its repeal, the EPA can no longer limit emissions from the country’s biggest sources of climate pollution, even as scientists warn of accelerating heat waves, wildfires, droughts and extreme weather conditions.
The repeal, called the “Holy Grail” of what Zeldin called the “religion of climate change,” hinges, from a legal standpoint, on the notion that Congress never authorized greenhouse gas regulation and that the Obama and Biden administrations overreached in granting powers.
Zeldin said, “If Congress didn’t authorize it, EPA shouldn’t do it. If Congress wants EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as much as possible, then Congress clearly can sign that into law.”
However, critics called the move a catastrophic abdication of duty.
Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, “this is a coup de grace in the years-long fight by oil, gas and coal interests to stop America’s transition to clean energy. The science and the law are very clear.”
Legal challenges are currently underway. The American Lung Association announced it plans to file a lawsuit against the decision.
According to them, the “repeal is illegal.” Environmental law experts believe the Supreme Court has “repeatedly and expressly recognized” the power of the EPA in previous rulings, including as recently as 2022.
If upheld, the repeal would make it impossible for the EPA to regulate carbon emissions forever and would prevent any future administration from being able to restore those powers without an act of Congress.
“We will see them in court and we will win,” Bapna said.
