WASHINGTON — In a potential landmark action, the head of the has privately urged the to reconsider a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action against .
In a report to the White House, EPA called for a rewrite of the agency’s finding that determined planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, according to four people who were briefed on the matter but spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the recommendation is not public.
The 2009 finding under the Clean Air Act is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources.
A spokesperson for the EPA on Wednesday declined to reveal Zeldin’s recommendation, which was made last week under an from Republican President Donald Trump. The order, issued on Trump’s first day in office, directed the EPA to submit a report “on the legality and continuing applicability” of the endangerment finding.
The Washington Post first reported that Zeldin had urged the White House to strike down the endangerment finding.
The Obama-era finding “is the linchpin of the federal government’s policies for what the president and I call the climate hoax,” said Steve Milloy, a former Trump transition adviser who disputes mainstream science on climate change.
“If you pull this (finding) out, everything EPA does on climate goes away,’’ Milloy told the AP.
Myron Ebell, another former Trump transition adviser who has questioned the science behind climate change, said he was “very excited” at Zeldin’s apparent recommendation.
“It’s the basis of all the economically damaging rules to regulate carbon dioxide,” Ebell said, calling repealing “a hard step, but a very big step.”
Environmental groups and legal experts said any attempt to repeal or roll back the endangerment finding would be an uphill task with a slim chance of success.
“This would be a fool’s errand,’’ said David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “In the face of overwhelming science, it’s impossible to think that the EPA could develop a contradictory finding that would stand up in court.”
Trump, who has repeatedly denounced what he calls a “green new scam” pushed by Democrats and environmentalists, may view a repeal of the endangerment finding as a “kill shot’’ that would allow him to make all climate regulations invalid, Doniger said.
“But it’s a real long shot for them,’’ he added, noting that courts repeatedly have upheld the EPA’s authority to regulate pollution from greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
“The directive to reconsider the endangerment finding comes straight from Project 2025 and is both cynical and deeply concerning given the mountain of scientific evidence supporting the finding, the devastating climate harms Americans are experiencing right now and EPA’s clear obligation to protect Americans’ health and welfare,’’ said Peter Zalzal, a senior lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, another environmental group.
, a nearly 1,000-page blueprint for a hard-right turn in American government and society, includes a recommendation to reconsider the endangerment finding.
Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at the UCLA School of Law, said any effort to overturn the endangerment finding would “raise more havoc — part of the administration’s overall strategy to flood the zone” with chaotic actions and directives.
“The science could not be clearer that greenhouse gas emissions have already led the earth to warm — so much so that it now appears we have breached the 1.5 Celsius limit” set by the global community in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, Carlson said.
“We are seeing the effects of climate change on the ground and across the globe in the form of hotter temperatures, more frequent drought, more intense flooding, fiercer hurricanes and more intense wildfires,” she said,
If the endangerment finding is upended, “the havoc will happen sooner and more sweepingly,” she said.
The post EPA head urges Trump to reconsider scientific finding that underpins climate action, AP sources say appeared first on Associated Press.
