The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to publish as soon as today a proposal that will make it much harder for future administrations to regulate greenhouse gases, and cause major headaches for the auto and power industries.
The plan would rescind the 2009 “endangerment finding,” EPA’s legal basis for restricting carbon emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks on the grounds that they are harmful to human health. The immediate impact would be limited, since the Trump administration had already moved to toss Biden-era emissions regulations. And the repeal is expected to face legal challenges.
But if it goes through, the repeal would require future administrations to go through a tedious process to re-establish the endangerment finding before even beginning to work on restoring regulations. Automakers and utilities, meanwhile, would face years of confusion about their emissions obligations. And because the EPA’s current rule gives those companies a layer of protection from environmentalists’ lawsuits, the repeal may even “open the floodgates” for cases against major firms, said Charlotte Jenkins, energy analyst at the consulting firm Capstone.
