This so-called "endangerment" finding undergirds federal climate change regulation. "If finalized, repeal of the endangerment finding would erase current limits on greenhouse gas pollution from cars, factories, power plants and other sources and could prevent future administrations from proposing rules to tackle climate change," reported AP.
The sound scientific basis for this 2009 finding has only strengthened in the intervening years. Additional research further confirms that the accumulation of fossil fuel-generated greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is the main reason for the rise in global temperatures, with all its growing deleterious impacts. Today, the link between climate change and more intense storms is well-established as are the negative public health consequences of stepped-up heat waves. As Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, aptly put it, "The endangerment finding is built on a rock-solid scientific foundation that has gotten even stronger over time."
In its effort to do away with the endangerment finding, the Trump EPA is using an all too familiar combination of bad faith, cherry picking of data, which in this case is designed to minimize the risk of climate change, and questionable legal logic. As Abigail Dillen, president of the environmental law firm, Earthjustice, told the AP, the EPA proposed rule "seeks to deny settled science by creating legal distinctions that have no basis in the law. Rather than take seriously its responsibility to protect public health, the Trump administration is pretending that the pollution causing climate change is not hurting us, even as we suffer more devastating climate disasters every year."
Reversing the endangerment finding is only one component of a no-holds-barred attempt by President Trump to rewind the clock to an energy policy more suited to the 1950s. The through line is increasing our reliance on fossil fuels and standing in the way of the production of non-carbon producing renewable energy no matter its negative impacts on our energy independence, the cost of energy, human health, or the future habitability of the planet.
A close-to-home case in point is an otherwise inexplicable decision to halt the nearly completed offshore Revolution Wind project that will--if it's allowed to be completed-- meet a considerable percentage of Rhode Island and Connecticut's demand for energy. A cost-effective and non-polluting source of energy, wind accounts for more than 10% of US total electricity generation. Its use is especially pronounced in a number of red states. With its more than 15,000 wind turbines, Texas, for instance, now employs wind power to supply nearly 30% of its electricity. Even if climate change did not present a threat, any sensible US energy policy would incentivize--not penalize--wind power.
Taken together, President Trump's counter-productive actions, including attempting to kill wind and solar power, curb the growth of electric cars, and take a sledgehammer to clean energy research, will make us less economically competitive, allowing China to increase its head start on capturing a global energy and automobile market that will be dominated by renewable energy and electric cars. At the same time, he is making us less--not more--energy secure -- on the home front.
The president will not stop the still inevitable domestic transition away from carbon-producing fossil fuels; he can only slow it down. Unfortunately, however, this slowdown will make it more difficult to sufficiently limit the rise in global temperatures to the levels' scientists tell us are needed to avoid the worse consequences of climate change.
That is why it is essential to oppose the Trump administration's heat-up-the-planet-anyway-possible policies on all fronts, including mounting an effective political and legal fight to prevent the doing away with the endangerment finding. This is a fight that legal experts believe can be won.