Former secretary of state condemns to decision revoke ruling that underpins ability to limit climate-heating pollution
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that the Trump administration has revoked the bedrock scientific determination that gives the government the ability to regulate climate-heating pollution. The move was described as a gift to “billionaire polluters” at the expense of Americans’ health.
The endangerment finding, which states that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare, has since 2009 allowed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to limit heat-trapping pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources.
Donald Trump called the move “the single largest deregulatory action in American history”. “This is a big one if you’re into environment,” he told reporters on Thursday. “This is about as big as it gets.”
