By Andrew Freedman
The Trump administration’s reported determination to overturn the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding on climate change would be extremely difficult — but not impossible, experts tell Axios.
Why it matters: The EPA finding — long a target of conservatives —underpins a slew of regulations on cars, trucks and power plant emissions.
- It held that six greenhouse gases endanger “both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.”
- Any attempt to overturn it would ignite instant court challenges.
Zoom in: Since the finding was issued in the wake of a 2007 Supreme Court decision, scientific and legal justifications to limit greenhouse gas emissions have only grown stronger, said Michael Greenstone, founding director of the University of Chicago’s Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth.
- Greenstone referred to it as “the Jenga piece of climate policy,” because removing it could topple a slew of laws and regulations.
- “It would pull out the underpinnings of a whole series of rules that aim to balance economic costs with reductions in emissions,” he said. “It would be enormously consequential.”
Yes, but: Greenstone said an effort to overturn the finding would have to ignore the mounting signs that climate change is already harming current generations.
- “It seems a bizarre position, given the record global temperatures, the fires in California, the unheard of hurricane storm in North Carolina,” he said. “It seems a strange moment in time to be arguing that greenhouse gases don’t endanger the public health and welfare.”