by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
The Daily Sentinel
In the next few days, the Environmental Protection Agency will announce that it is officially revisiting its 2009 “endangerment finding,” the controversial declaration that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant. Dozens of lawsuits will immediately follow, some judge will block the process, and courts will struggle with it throughout President Trump’s term. The debate is as divisive as any environmental issue in history, but it is a debate we must have.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told the Ruthless podcast that repealing the endangerment finding “will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America.” That’s because the 2009 finding is the essential basis for virtually all U.S. actions intended to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, under the guise of mitigating climate change. No issue has fundamentally altered the U.S. economy as much as climate change, nor has almost any political issue been more divisive during my lifetime. This action revisits the original underlying question of whether America’s use of energy is in fact destroying the world.
If we believe carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare — and will ultimately destroy Earth’s capacity to support life — then it makes sense to adopt strict regulations on automobiles, power plants, mines, factories, home appliances, and a bewildering array of other human activities. However, such regulations have cost consumers untold billions, hindered the growth of business, snuffed out hundreds of thousands of jobs, and wrecked local economies from coast to coast. So, if carbon dioxide does not actually endanger public health or destroy the planet, then it certainly makes sense to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.
The idea of treating carbon dioxide — a naturally occurring compound vital to life — as a pollutant was hatched by climate activists during the second Bush Administration, but it seemed far beyond the scope of the Clean Air Act, because Congress never authorized the EPA to regulate the essential air we breathe as a “greenhouse gas.” Dozens of states and organizations sued, but the Supreme Court upheld EPA’s authority. That opened the door in 2009 for the Obama EPA to publish the “endangerment finding,” the official determination that CO2 is a threat to public health and welfare. All the climate-based regulations since then stemmed from that.
