Trump Administration Seeks to Undo EPA Climate Finding in Sweeping Deregulatory Push

The Trump administration is set to repeal the EPA’s climate endangerment finding, a move that would dismantle the legal basis for federal greenhouse gas rules affecting vehicles and broader energy regulation.

(Reuters) — The administration of President Donald Trump is set this week to overturn an Obama-era scientific finding that carbon dioxide endangers human health, removing the legal basis for federal greenhouse gas emissions regulations.

The move, which the administration formally proposed in July, would mark the Republican administration's most sweeping climate change policy rollback to date, and follows a string of regulatory cuts and other moves intended to unfetter fossil fuel development and stymie the rollout of clean energy.

Trump says he believes climate change is a hoax, and has withdrawn the United States from global efforts to combat it.

The Environmental Protection Agency told Reuters late on Monday that the repeal of what is known as the endangerment finding would be unveiled this week. An EPA spokesperson said the finding had been used by the Democratic Obama and Biden administrations to "justify trillions of dollars of greenhouse gas regulations covering new vehicles and engines."

The Wall Street Journal was first to report the plan to issue the repeal this week, and cited EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin saying it would amount to "the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States."

Repeal Would Apply to Car Emission Standards

The repeal would remove the regulatory requirements to measure, report, certify, and comply with federal GHG emission standards for cars, administration officials told the Wall Street Journal, but would not apply to stationary sources such as power plants.

Reuters was unable to confirm those details.

While many industry groups back the repeal of vehicle emission standards, many have been reluctant to show public support for rescinding the endangerment finding because of the legal and regulatory uncertainty it could unleash.

"You squeeze one part of the climate-policy balloon and the pressure shifts toward increased efforts somewhere else, like state-level policy, tort cases, or future legislation," said Billy Pizer, president of Resources for the Future, an energy and environment research group.

The Trump administration has been working on the repeal for over a year.

Repeal Will Face Legal Challenges

On Jan. 30, a federal court ruled the Department of Energy had violated the law when it formed a climate science advisory group whose report was meant to support the EPA's attempt to repeal the endangerment finding, making the final rule vulnerable to legal challenges.

The proposed rule was sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review on Jan. 7.

Last month, the American Petroleum Institute said it supported repealing the endangerment finding for vehicles but said it should be left in place for stationary sources.

That would require the EPA to continue to regulate emissions from the oil and gas sector as well as from power plants.

The transportation and power sectors are each responsible for around a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas output, according to EPA figures.

The move would hurt the global climate while helping China's fast-growing clean energy industry, said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign.

"They’re popping champagne corks ... in Beijing, where China’s EV makers will face no competition from the U.S. to dominate the world’s clean car market," he said.