The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will on Tuesday propose to repeal its landmark 2009 finding that greenhouse gases pose a threat to the public.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the timing of the proposed repeal during an appearance on the conservative Ruthless Podcast on Tuesday morning. He had previously said last week that he would axe the finding.
“Later today, we’re going to be making a big announcement in Indiana,” he said Tuesday morning.
“Something that happened back in the Obama administration in 2009 was that they put forward this regulation called the ‘endangerment finding,’” Zeldin said.
“Repealing it will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America,” he added.
The finding is not just symbolic: It also represents a legal justification for climate regulations, especially rules governing the auto industry that have significant environmental and economic ramifications.
In 2007, a case called Massachusetts v. EPA authorized the agency to regulate climate change if it makes a determination that global warming poses harm to the American people.
The first Trump administration did not go as far as repealing the endangerment finding, even if it did weaken climate change regulations.
The proposal to repeal the finding comes in spite of decades of evidence that climate change drives an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather.
