The federal government is attempting to abandon years of climate science and regulation, and officials from Washington state are warning those efforts will drastically slow the country’s ability to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency no longer wants to classify greenhouse gas emissions as dangerous and, therefore, something that must be regulated. The agency is now in the middle of a public comment process to reverse its long-standing course. Public officials and climate change experts from across the country are testifying against the federal government’s new direction.
Among those in opposition is Joel Creswell, who manages the climate pollution reduction program with Washington state’s Department of Ecology. He said the EPA’s process is built on unscientific research and cherry-picked data. It’s also likely illegal, Creswell said.
The federal government is trying to provide the “appearance of a science-based reason” not to regulate greenhouse gases, Creswell said.
But in reality, the broad scientific consensus has repeatedly confirmed and warned that these emissions, from the burning of fossil fuels, are warming our planet and ushering in a new era of extreme — and deadly — climate patterns.
President Donald Trump’s administration wants to shore up the fossil fuel industry and undercut efforts to transition toward renewable energy and electric vehicles. The big-picture goal, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said this year, is to drive a “dagger through the heart of the climate change religion.”
For the first time in modern recorded history, every month last year was more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average. That level, sustained over the long term, is widely acknowledged as a threshold, beyond which the consequences of climate change will worsen drastically.
Without major efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the world may pass that threshold by 2030, according to the United Nations. Facing such a short deadline, American allies (like the European Union) and adversaries (like China) are doubling down on renewable energy, though the Trump administration is pushing the U.S. in the opposite direction.
Think of a man in the hospital with 18 stab wounds, said Matthew Metz, director of the Seattle-based electric vehicle advocacy group Coltura. That’s the country’s climate policy now. Perhaps he’s still registering a faint pulse and hoping the courts will save him.
The EPA’s quest to stop regulating greenhouse gas emissions is like another seven stab wounds, Metz said.
“How dead can he be?” he said.
There’s still reason for a bit of optimism in Washington, Metz and Creswell said. State policies can still attempt to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet. But they’ll never be as effective as an overarching federal strategy for the entire country.
Endangerment finding
In order to solve a problem, first you must admit that you have one.
That’s essentially the EPA’s endangerment finding. An acknowledgment. In 2009, the agency’s administrator found that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, like carbon dioxide and methane, threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.
With that finding in hand, Creswell said the federal government had to then regulate the gases under the 1972 Clean Air Act or provide a scientific reason not to. In the following years a mix of regulations followed, targeting anything from tailpipes to power plants.
Some states enacted their own, stricter regulations, but otherwise the rest of the country is covered by the federal government’s baseline regulations.
But last month at a truck dealership Zeldin said the Trump administration would revoke the endangerment finding, in a sweeping deregulatory effort, which would free major polluters from longstanding federal emission rules but also slash limits on cars, trucks and more.
The transportation sector is particularly important, Creswell said, because it’s the single largest source of emissions in Washington state, as well as the rest of the country.
The revocation would also make reinstating such regulations difficult for any future presidents, said state Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, D-West Seattle, and House majority leader. To justify the changes, the EPA is relying on a recent Department of Energy report written by five climate change doubters.
In recent months, the administration has taken pains to purge climate scientists, data sets and other pieces of public information that would contradict its new justification.
These moves are all part of a broad, ideological effort to boost the lucrative fossil fuel industry, Fitzgibbon said.
What does this mean for Washington state?
Should the EPA revoke its endangerment finding, Washington probably won’t see any immediate or direct change to the policies already in place. The state already has its own regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions from major polluters like the Clean Energy Transformation Act of 2019 and the Climate Commitment Act of 2021.
We also have a requirement in place that all new cars sold here be either electric or plug-in hybrid by 2035 (with lighter requirements for heavier-duty vehicles). That particular state regulation is already under attack by the Trump administration, however. And the quest to revoke the endangerment finding would double down on the federal government’s position, Metz said.
While Washington and other, similarly aligned states hold their course, much of the rest of the country would see a slower transition away from fossil fuels, Fitzgibbon said. Other states continuing to burn coal and gas at higher rates will still add to the global warming balance sheet. Ultimately, the bill will come due here too in the form of extreme weather, rising sea levels, wildfires, drought and more.
Similarly the automobile industry will likely transition slower toward electric vehicles without federal pressure, Metz said. But he expressed optimism that more and more consumers will continue to see their benefits and continue buying them over gas-powered vehicles.
Should the EPA finalize its decision to revoke its endangerment finding, it will likely face a series of legal challenges, Fitzgibbon said. Although, whether the courts would overturn the administration’s decision is something that remains to be seen, he said.
The agency will continue accepting public comments on the endangerment finding until Sept. 22.
