The rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency rescinds a 2009 government declaration known as the endangerment finding that claimed carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
The endangerment finding by the Obama administration has been used to justify the imposition of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for such things as motor vehicles and power plants.
President Donald Trump called the move “the single largest deregulatory action in American history,” while EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the endangerment finding “the Holy Grail of federal regulatory overreach.”
Enviromental groups and others are certain to launch legal challenges.
The EPA also said it will propose a two-year delay to a Biden-era rule restricting greenhouse gas emissions by cars and light trucks.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman who was tapped by Trump to lead EPA last year, has criticized his predecessors in Democratic administrations, saying that in the name of tackling climate change, they were "willing to bankrupt the country.”
Withdrawing the endangerment finding “is the most important step taken by the Trump administration so far to return to energy and economic sanity,'' said Myron Ebell, a conservative activist who has questioned the alleged science behind climate change.
The Trump administration announced a proposal in December to change mileage rules for the auto industry, loosening regulatory pressure on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The EPA said its two-year delay to a Biden-era rule on greenhouse gas emissions by cars and light trucks will give the agency time to develop a plan that better reflects the reality of slower EV sales, while promoting consumer choice and lowering prices.
The mileage plan would significantly reduce requirements that set rules on how far new vehicles need to travel on a gallon of gasoline. Trump said the rule change will lower the price of new cars and increase Americans’ access to the full range of gasoline vehicles they need and can afford.
