Trump Orders EPA To Reconsider Its Finding That Greenhouse Gases Endanger Human Health, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That The Legal Basis For Every Federal Climate Rule Was Still Intact

The Filing

WASHINGTON. In what administration officials described as a routine act of scientific humility, President Donald J. Trump this week directed the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its 2009 determination that greenhouse gases endanger human health, formally reopening the question of whether the air becoming unbreathable is a problem.

The finding under review, known as the endangerment finding, is the legal cornerstone on which every federal limit on carbon pollution rests. Issued after the Supreme Court instructed the agency to decide the matter, it concluded that carbon dioxide and five other gases threaten public health and welfare. Should the EPA reverse it, the government would lose its authority to regulate those gases from cars, trucks, and power plants, a development the administration characterized as freeing the agency from the burden of having already made up its mind.

Under an executive order signed on his first day in office, the President gave the agency thirty days to submit recommendations on the finding's continuing applicability, a deadline that arrived this month. Officials said the review would proceed with an open mind toward the possibility that sixteen years of subsequent warming had been a misunderstanding.

"The science was settled in 2009, and we believe it is time to unsettle it," said a senior EPA official, who added that the agency looked forward to studying the matter until it reached a more convenient conclusion. The President, who has repeatedly described climate change as a hoax, has said the reconsideration reflects his commitment to putting American energy first.

Environmental lawyers noted that rescinding the finding would not alter the underlying atmospheric chemistry, only the federal government's official position on it. Administration officials acknowledged the distinction but said they remained optimistic that removing the paperwork documenting a danger was functionally similar to removing the danger.

At press time, the EPA had assembled a blue-ribbon panel to determine, pending further study, whether the sun is hot.

Who Benefits

§Donald J. Trump, who delivers a marquee promise to the fossil fuel donors who funded his campaign and banks a fresh talking point about unleashing American energy.
§The Trump Organization, whose properties and future ventures benefit from an administration friendly to cheap fossil fuel and hostile to the rules that would constrain it.
§The coal, oil, and gas industry, which stands to shed the single legal mechanism the federal government uses to cap its carbon emissions.
§Automakers seeking relief from tailpipe standards, who lose the regulatory foundation that would otherwise push them toward cleaner fleets.
§Fossil fuel campaign donors, who were reportedly told what their contributions might purchase and now watch it arrive on schedule.
§Petrostates and foreign oil exporters, who benefit whenever the world's largest economy formally reconsiders whether burning their product is harmful.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment