This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Experts and members of the public on Tuesday voiced overwhelming opposition to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to rescind its key greenhouse gas “endangerment finding” and vehicle emissions standards.
That pushback came during the first of four scheduled public hearings on the agency’s plan to overturn its prior finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The finding, in turn, allowed prior administrations to regulate emissions from motor vehicles, power plants and oil and gas operations for more than a decade.
The original finding followed a 2007 Supreme Court case, Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the court determined that greenhouse gas emissions qualify as air pollutants—and ordered the EPA to assess whether the emissions endangered public health.
In 2009, the EPA turned its determination into one of the most consequential actions the agency had taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat the growing climate crisis.
But in its new proposal, the agency has threatened to undo the very same environmental protections it once enabled.
“While the public comment period is necessary under law, personally, I believe that the decision at EPA has already been made.”
At the start of Tuesday’s hearing, Aaron Szabo, assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation at the EPA, said that the agency is “committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law and give power back to states to make their own decisions.”
The EPA declined an interview request for this story. But in a July press release, the agency criticized the Obama administration for “mental leaps” that led it to determine that greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles contribute “some unspecified amount to climate change, which in turn creates some unspecified amount of endangerment to human health and welfare.”
According to the press release, the EPA’s new proposal to rescind that finding cites “new scientific and technological developments” that challenge the assumptions behind the endangerment finding. The EPA has justified the move by citing a Department of Energy report that top climate scientists have decried as “antiscientific.”
The report contains a variety of claims that contradict the scientific consensus on climate change. It instead says that the crisis “appears to be less damaging economically than commonly believed,” and it suggests that increased carbon dioxide levels could be a positive development by increasing crop yields and argues that climate model projections overestimate warming.
But the vast majority of speakers during the opening day of the EPA’s public hearings hit back at those claims and urged the agency not to overturn the 2009 finding. From attorneys general to clergy members, from physicians to federal and state lawmakers, the message to the EPA was resounding.
Out of roughly 200 people who testified on Tuesday, Inside Climate News counted fewer than 10 who spoke in favor of the EPA’s move.
The rest expressed significant concerns over the agency’s rationale for the repeal and highlighted the potential consequences for public health, the environment and the United States’ moral stature on the world stage.
The EPA’s proposal relies on an “unvetted, scientifically unsound report from the Department of Energy.”
Representatives from organizations including the American College of Physicians, the National Medical Association, and the American Public Health Association warned the agency that rescinding the finding would have a disastrous impact on the health of all Americans—especially those with medical conditions and from disadvantaged communities.
“In the case of climate change, things cannot be clearer: Greenhouse gases are driving climate change, which is harming people’s lungs across the country,” said Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association.
“Standards that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles have been used by EPA for decades under multiple administrators,” Wimmer said. “Repealing them would not only threaten an acceleration of climate change, it would also lead to increases in harmful air pollution that impact lung health.”
Dr. Ankush Bansal, president-elect of Physicians for Social Responsibility—a Nobel Peace Prize-winning nonprofit—drew a direct line between emissions from nonelectric motor vehicles and harms to human health.
And Khadijah Ameen, co-founder and director of policy and research at the Georgia nonprofit BLKHLTH, said that the ramifications of greenhouse gas emissions are “concentrated in communities that have already been historically excluded and under-resourced.”
Attorneys general and assistant attorneys general from eight states also decried the move as illegal and misguided.
The EPA’s proposal relies on an “unvetted, scientifically unsound report from the Department of Energy to attempt to override the abundant and growing science supporting its endangerment finding and motor vehicle [greenhouse gas] emissions standards,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said.
“The reconsideration of the 2009 endangerment finding [of] greenhouse gas emissions is completely flawed,” said a Republican farmer.
Representatives from organizations including the American Petroleum Institute, National Automobile Dealers Association, American Trucking Associations, and the CO2 Coalition—a nonprofit advocacy organization that has been criticized for its climate change denialism—spoke in support of the EPA’s proposal.
“CO2 should be celebrated, not demonized,” said Gregory Wrightstone, CO2 Coalition’s executive director. “We don’t have too much CO2—we don’t have enough.”
Will Hupman, representing the American Petroleum Institute, thanked the EPA for its move to “unleash American energy,” adding that it will roll back “heavy-handed and one-size-fits-all vehicle mandates set by the previous administration.”
“We understand the importance of reducing emissions from the transportation sector, but believe the Biden administration took the wrong approach,” Hupman said. “Its approach favored a single technology over all others, and would have effectively mandated the sale of electric vehicles.
“This proposed rule takes a critical step towards restoring consumer choice and protecting the freedom of Americans to decide what to buy and drive to fit their personal needs.”
Public hearings are expected to continue through Friday, and experts anticipate that the change will be challenged in court if the agency moves forward with its plan to rescind the finding.
Despite the balance of testimony leaning heavily against the EPA’s proposal, it appears unlikely that the Trump administration will reverse course on a key component of its drive to deregulate and roll back environmental protections.
“The reconsideration of the 2009 endangerment finding [of] greenhouse gas emissions is completely flawed,” said Jason Touw, who identified himself as a farmer and a registered Republican.
“I want to say that while the public comment period is necessary under law, personally, I believe that the decision at EPA has already been made,” Touw said.
“I hope I am wrong.”
This post has been syndicated from Mother Jones, where it was published under this address.