The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday it would roll back dozens of regulations on energy, air quality and carbon emissions.
The rollbacks are intended to reduce costs associated with energy and personal vehicles and the business of manufacturing. Administration officials discussing the rollbacks in statements on Wednesday emphasized those financial and economic costs, and said the changes will translate to increased jobs, particularly in the automotive sector.
"We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more," EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement.
Particular changes expected from the agency include:
- Reconsidering the 2009 Endangerment Finding, under which the EPA held that greenhouse gas emissions "threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations." This scientific finding became the legal basis of other EPA standards and regulation on greenhouse emissions.
- Reconsidering rules that would have required coal and natural gas power plants to reduce or otherwise capture 90% of greenhouse emissions through 2032.
- Revising the definition of "waters of the United States" to align with a 2023 Supreme Court decision that limited the bodies of water covered by the Clean Water Act.
- Reconsidering 2024 regulations intended to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.
The EPA is also expected to target rules that mandate greenhouse gas emission reporting, govern mercury and soot pollution and estimate the damage in dollars done by CO2 emissions. It will shutter its internal DEI programs and external programs that sought to remedy the burden of industrial pollution in underrepresented communities.
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Environmental groups have promised legal challenges, particularly to any changes to the Endangerment Finding.
“The Trump administration’s ignorance is trumped only by its malice toward the planet,” Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, told the Associated Press. ”We’re going to fight it every step of the way.”
