On February 12, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repealed the 2009 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding. This finding established that greenhouse gases pose a danger to human health and welfare. It provided the legal basis for the EPA to regulate climate-warming pollution under the Clean Air Act. Repealing it will sharply limit federal authority to control emissions from vehicles, power plants, and industrial sources. This action will have immediate and catastrophic impacts on public health. Increased carbon dioxide emissions are typically accompanied by higher levels of co-pollutants such as particulate matter and ozone. These worsen asthma, heart disease, and contribute to premature mortality—especially in children, older adults, and low-income communities. This action will also aggravate climate-related problems: extreme heat, flooding, and wildfire smoke, will intensify without enforceable national standards, and accelerate climate change, increase risk to water supplies, agriculture, ecosystems, and coastal infrastructure. States will face a heavier burden responding to disasters. Natural resources critical to tourism and food systems will degrade. Economically, this action will create regulatory uncertainty, discourage clean-energy investment and cede global leadership in climate technology to other countries. It will also expose taxpayers to higher disaster recovery costs and health-care spending. Finally, reversing this science-based determination undermines trust in federal governance. It sends a strong signal that political and financial considerations outweigh protecting our well-being, even when the scientific evidence is clear.
David Kyle, New Columbia