Based off the endangerment findings from 2009, greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases threaten public health and welfare. Under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is obligated to regulate them.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump are now rescinding the endangerment finding — adjusting agency interpretation of the Clean Air Act to reject that greenhouse gases qualify for regulation.
Kevin Dayaratna, of Advancing American Freedom, says CO2 has been overly and unnecessarily regulated over time, so, "it is great that the administration is taking a step back."
He points out that affordable and reliable energy is "fundamentally important" to a flourishing society.
"The problem is that inane regulations like this unnecessarily raise the costs and constrict access to energy," he explains.
The White House calls this repeal the largest deregulatory action in U.S. history.
But not everyone is a fan of it. The grassroots Sierra Club, for example, calls it a "brazen assault on the health and welfare of the American public" that formalizes "climate denialism as official government policy" and eliminates the EPA's ability to fight man-made climate change.
Dayaratna dismisses such criticism.
"CO2 is not soot; it is not smog," he points out. "It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic gas, and the bottom line is these regulations don't even meaningfully impact the climate anyway."
He says the Obama-era policies have had no effect on the environment but have raised costs for everybody and pushed them in unsustainable directions.
The White House projects significant cost savings from this repeal, especially for automobile buyers.
