by Steve Milloy, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow and Junkscience.com Founder
As Appearing on The Washington Examiner
President Donald Trump on Feb. 12 announced the “biggest deregulatory move in history” — the Environmental Protection Agency rescission of the 2009 Obama administration EPA endangerment finding for greenhouse gases with respect to vehicles.
It is a great move to end the climate hoax, to spur American energy dominance, and to boost the economy and economic growth by trillions of dollars. But there’s much more to the game than just making the announcement.
Former President Barack Obama’s endangerment finding declared that emissions of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, threatened public health and welfare through mechanisms such as global warming, climate change, and extreme weather.
Although Congress never ordered or authorized EPA to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases, radical green groups had schemed since the Clinton administration to bring about such regulation through litigation. This scheme succeeded and resulted in the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the court held that EPA could — not that it had to — regulate greenhouse gas emissions despite the absence of congressional authorization.
Though former President George W. Bush’s EPA opted not to regulate greenhouse gases, Obama’s EPA did, issuing the endangerment finding in December 2009.
