In a victory lap for his administration, President Donald Trump has taken his biggest swing yet against climate change regulations, revoking the scientific finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. What this really means is the Trump EPA has gutted its own authority to limit planet-warming pollution from the nation's top emitters - vehicles, power plants, and the fossil fuel industry.
A Gift to "Billionaire Polluters"
The move, described as a "gift to billionaire polluters" by environmental advocates, erases the legal foundation for key climate rules under the Clean Air Act. This includes federal tailpipe emissions standards for cars and trucks, a major source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Trump said the repeal "has nothing to do with public health" and called the original finding a "giant scam" by the Obama administration.
Handing Victory to Fossil Fuels
The bigger picture here is that this move is part of the Trump administration's broader energy agenda to prop up the financially struggling coal industry and secure the position of oil and gas, even as it works to stymie the growth of clean energy alternatives like wind, solar, and electric vehicles. As one former EPA official put it, this represents a "historic low" for the agency, gambling that the Supreme Court will allow them to completely avoid regulating the nation's top greenhouse gas sources.
This latest rollback could also handcuff future Democratic presidents from using the EPA to drive the transition to clean energy - even as the scientific consensus on the urgency of climate action grows stronger every year. As former Secretary of State John Kerry warned, "Ignoring warning signs will not stop the storm. It puts more Americans directly in its path."