The Trump administration is expected this week to rescind the longstanding federal policy on which all US greenhouse gas regulation is based, in what would amount to the most wide-reaching rollback of climate policy of President Donald Trump’s two terms. The “endangerment finding” — a 2009 scientific conclusion by the Environmental Protection Agency which finds that greenhouse gases are worsening droughts, storms, and other environmental disasters, and therefore pose an urgent risk to public health — provides the legal basis for the EPA to regulate those gases. Withdrawing it has long been a top priority for lawyers in Trump’s orbit, and would clear the way for EPA to scrap emissions limits for vehicles, power plants, and other sources.
The change could also prompt state governments to roll out a patchwork of their own regulations, adding a new layer of compliance headaches for automakers, utilities, and other companies. Environmental attorneys also warn that the inevitable legal battle over the finding could result in a Supreme Court decision that effectively prevents future administrations from reinstating it. Still, one lesson from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act is that government incentives to reduce the cost of low-carbon alternatives — rather than regulations to penalize high-carbon sectors — could be a more effective way to drive decarbonization in any case.