The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday made a critical announcement. It repealed the scientific determination that gives the government the authority to combat climate change.
That 2009 determination is called the endangerment finding, and most people have never heard of it. But it has played an enormous role in environmental regulations affecting cars, power plants and more.
By scrapping the finding, the Trump administration is essentially disputing the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. The vast majority of scientists say the Earth is rapidly and dangerously warming, which is fueling more powerful storms, killing coral reefs, melting glaciers and causing countless other destructive impacts.
Here’s what you should know about the endangerment finding and why it matters.
What is the endangerment finding?
The finding simply states that carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases threaten human health, both now and in the future. These gases are released by the combustion of fossil fuels, such as when a car engine burns gasoline or a power plant burns coal.
The Clean Air Act of 1970 required the E.P.A. to regulate air pollutants that harm human health. For example, it directed the agency to limit smog and soot, which are linked to asthma and other health problems.
But the landmark environmental law didn’t explicitly say whether the agency should regulate greenhouse gases. The endangerment finding said that it should, since these gases trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in a range of risks to people’s health.
For example, the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is creating warmer and wetter conditions that accelerate the spread of Lyme disease and other vector-borne illnesses. It is also fueling stronger hurricanes, more intense heat waves and other extreme weather events that cause injuries and death.
Why does the Trump administration want to repeal the finding?
President Trump has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax” and has joked that rising seas would create “a little more beachfront property.”
Since Mr. Trump took office, the administration has maintained that climate change is not a problem that the government should solve. To the contrary, the president and his cabinet have argued that the United States should produce and burn more fossil fuels.
They also have sought to relieve the coal, oil and gas industries of pollution limits that cost them money. Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, has claimed that Democratic administrations used the endangerment finding to justify “trillions of dollars” in regulations on polluting industries, and argued reversing those will aid the U.S. economy.
The E.P.A. already is erasing dozens of Biden-era regulations that sought to limit the pollution spewing from automobile tailpipes, power plant smokestacks, oil and gas wells and other sources.
But repealing the endangerment finding goes a step further. By dismantling the justification for addressing greenhouse gas emissions, the repeal could prevent future presidents from reinstating any climate rules in the future.
What are the administration’s scientific arguments?
Mr. Zeldin has argued that the endangerment finding is based on flawed climate models that overestimated how much the planet would warm in the coming decades.
“To reach the 2009 endangerment finding, they relied on the most pessimistic views of the science,” Mr. Zeldin said on CNN’s “State of Union” last year. “The great news is that a lot of the pessimistic views of the science in 2009 that was being assumed ended up not panning out.”
Mr. Zeldin is partly right; some predictions made in 2009 are less likely to happen because many countries have taken action to reduce greenhouse gases and because of the rise in renewable energy.
But the Earth is still expected to warm by an average of 2.6 degrees Celsius, or 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of the century. That level of warming could still have disastrous consequences, such as the loss of nearly all coral reefs and significant sea level rise that would overwhelm coastal communities.
What do scientists say?
Scientists are unequivocal: The dangers of unchecked greenhouse gas emissions were clear in 2009, and they have only grown more evident since.
Moreover, the scientific understanding of how the Earth’s warming affects individual weather disasters and the spread of infectious diseases has advanced dramatically over the past decade.
“The basic science on greenhouse gases from fossil fuels as a driver of climate change has been clear for well over a century,” Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, said in a statement.
Since the endangerment finding was issued, Dr. Howarth said, “the science has gotten even stronger, particularly regarding attributing harm to the changing climate: we can now say with certainty that rising CO2 and methane is altering the climate, and that this is leading to longer and more severe droughts, floods, hurricanes and larger and more intense fires.”
Abigail Swann, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington, said the evidence since 2009 “supports the opposite view” of Mr. Zeldin’s perspective. That includes more sustained drought, more extreme rainfall and flooding and fiercer wildfires like the ones that tore through Los Angeles last year.
“We continue to see that there will be major impacts, and many of those are starting already,” Dr. Swann said.
What are the administration’s legal arguments?
The administration has a two-pronged legal rationale.
First, it said the Clean Air Act applies only to “local” pollutants like soot and smog that cause more direct harm when people are exposed. It said the law does not apply to gases like carbon dioxide and methane that linger in the atmosphere and disperse across the globe.
The George W. Bush administration made a similar argument two decades ago, but it suffered a crushing defeat at the Supreme Court. In a landmark 2007 case, Massachusetts v. E.P.A., the court ruled that the agency could regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, as long as these gases were a threat to public health and welfare.
And second, the E.P.A. said that it cannot restrict greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles because of a recent Supreme Court ruling that found the E.P.A. cannot write regulations with far-reaching economic consequences without explicit authorization from Congress. Strict limits on tailpipe emissions would fall into that category, the agency argued, because they would force automakers to switch from building combustion engine vehicles to electric versions.
What do legal experts say?
Some environmental lawyers said it was risky for the Trump administration to reprise a legal argument made by the Bush administration that already failed at the Supreme Court.
But they said the justices could still chip away at the E.P.A.’s power to tackle global warming without overturning Massachusetts v. E.P.A., such as by deferring to the Trump administration’s narrower interpretation of the Clean Air Act.
“The court wouldn’t have to overrule the Massachusetts case to do a lot of damage,” said Michael Gerrard, an environmental law expert at Columbia University.
Other legal experts said the conservative majority on the Supreme Court could be sympathetic to the E.P.A.’s claims about the lack of congressional authorization.
Jeffrey Holmstead, an energy attorney with the law firm Bracewell and a former E.P.A. official under President George W. Bush, called that an argument that “could win over a majority of justices.”
What could this mean for me?
The Trump administration has claimed that ending limits on greenhouse gases from cars would lower the price of new vehicles, but experts aren’t so sure.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday that the administration predicted “average, per-vehicle savings of more than $2,400 for popular light-duty cars, S.U.V.s and trucks.”
The administration has declined to explain how it arrived at those numbers. But Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said in an email that consumers would see “huge relief.” Brigit Hirsch, the E.P.A. press secretary, said in an email that “it’s just common sense that restoring consumer choice and repealing costly government mandates leads to more affordable vehicles.”
Yet Alan Jenn, an associate professor at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, said the Trump administration assumed that gas prices in the future would drop, without explaining why. He said the administration also used outdated figures that failed to reflect the rapidly declining cost of batteries that is bringing down the cost of electric vehicles.
“It’s hard to find any math in their assessment that doesn’t seem, frankly, a little bit ridiculous,” Dr. Jenn said, adding that Mr. Trump’s tariffs on imported cars and car parts could also cause prices to rise.
Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.
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