Feb. 10 (UPI) — Officials for the Environmental Protection Agency said they are working to end a 2009 declaration that says climate change is a danger to public health.
During the weekend, EPA officials submitted to the Office of Management and Budget a proposed rule revoking the 2009 endangerment finding that guided U.S. climate and greenhouse gas regulations.
The EPA did not say when the endangerment finding officially would be revoked, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested it would happen this week.
“This week at the White House, President [Donald] Trump will be taking the most significant deregulatory actions in history to further unleash American energy dominance and drive down costs,” Leavitt said in a prepared statement.
Revoking the endangerment finding removes the EPA’s statutory authority to regulate motor vehicle emissions that was provided via Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act of 1970, an EPA spokesperson told The Hill.
The endangerment finding is “one of the most damaging decisions in modern history,” the Leavitt said.
The Clean Air Act forces the EPA to regulate vehicle emissions that produce any pollutant that are reasonably thought to pose a danger to public health or welfare.
A 2007 Supreme Court ruling determined that greenhouse gas emissions that are thought to contribute to global warming meet the standard for air pollutants that require regulation due to their potential for harming public health.
The Obama administration in 2009 issued the endangerment finding for greenhouse gas emissions, which the prior Supreme Court ruling said requires the EPA to regulate them.
The EPA that year decided that greenhouse gas emissions likely would cause widespread “serious adverse health effects in large-population areas” due to increased ambient ozone over many areas of the United States.
“The impact on mortality and morbidity associated with increases in average temperatures, which increase the likelihood of heat waves, also provides support for a public health endangerment finding,” the EPA said in its endangerment finding.
“The evidence concerning how human-induced climate change may alter extreme weather events also clearly supports a finding of endangerment,” the EPA said, while acknowledging that the conclusion was based on “consensus.”
The finding said carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are fueling storms, drought, heat waves, wildfires and rising seas, which pose a threat to public health.
Because the finding determined emissions from the burning of coal, gas and oil were said to contribute to climate change, the EPA undertook regulations of power plants, vehicles and other sources of greenhouse gas emissions, including gas stoves, ovens, water heaters and heating systems.
Revoking the endangerment finding ends those regulations, which could be reversed if a future administration reinstates the finding.
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