After months of telegraphing the move, the Trump administration today officially rescinded the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding” that found greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane to be a threat to human health and well-being.
That finding has so far supported the agency’s regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Currently, the new rule applies only to tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks, but it is expected to be the first of several similar changes to federal air pollution regulations.
However, before the endangerment finding can be fully overturned, the EPA must go through a lengthy process. It took two years to locate the original find.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s move will slow the decline in emissions by about 10%, Axios reports. That’s a significant amount, but not enough to reverse the trend, in part because cheap renewables have dominated new electricity generation capacity in recent years.
“This action will only lead to more pollution, and that will lead to higher costs and real harm to American families,” Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, told TechCrunch in a statement.
Unmitigated climate change is expected to increase US mortality by about 2% and could reduce global GDP by 17%, or about $38 trillion, by 2050.