The EPA is revoking the finding for legal, not scientific, reasons.
Following three of the warmest years on record, as scientists reckon with climate tipping points and states and cities grapple with the escalating cost of extreme weather and more intense wildfires, the Trump administration this week is expected to formally eliminate the US government’s role in controlling greenhouse gas pollution.
By revoking its 17-year-old scientific finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, the Environmental Protection Agency will demolish the legal underpinning of its authority to act on climate change under the Clean Air Act.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin will be alongside President Donald Trump for an event Wednesday focused on boosting US use of coal, as mercury and air toxics standards are repealed. That is expected to be a prelude to Zeldin finalizing the endangerment finding repeal, an assignment the president handed him in an executive order signed on the first day of his second term in office.
“President Trump will be taking the most significant deregulatory actions in history to further unleash American energy dominance and drive down costs,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.
