The Trump administration repealed a key defense in the U.S. fight against climate change — and it will likely have far-reaching impacts on people’s finances, according to experts on the economic effects of global warming.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday overturned the “endangerment finding,” a cornerstone of U.S. climate policy since the Obama era.
The finding underpins the federal government’s legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, which trap heat in the atmosphere and warm the planet.
Experts have said the change is the Trump administration’s most aggressive move yet to hobble U.S. climate policy.
Repealing the endangerment finding leaves the U.S. with fewer ways to curb emissions and increases Americans’ exposure to climate damages, Chris Field, director of the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University, said in a September briefing.
