United States, the EPA proposes eliminating nearly all climate regulations
Environment — di Andrea Barolini
A proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency would eliminate nearly every regulation that currently limits greenhouse gas emissions.
United States, the EPA proposes eliminating nearly all climate regulations
A proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency would eliminate nearly every regulation that currently limits greenhouse gas emissions.
The news was expected, but that makes it no less catastrophic for the Planet. On Tuesday, July 29, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) submitted a regulatory proposal that would, in effect, lead to the elimination of nearly all regulations aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions. From private cars to trucks, from power plants to methane leaks, from rules governing oil companies to coal: the intention is to wipe out, in a single stroke, years and years of painstaking (and still widely insufficient) progress.
Breaking News: The EPA is planning to revoke the scientific determination that underpins the government's authority to combat climate change. The agency's administrator said the move would be "the largest deregulatory action in the history of America." nyti.ms/4fbeloF
In 2009, the EPA established that greenhouse gases are a threat to the population
One might wonder how it is legally possible to eliminate so many regulations with a single act. The move was a clever one, from the perspective of the Washington administration: the EPA is in fact aiming to reinterpret the Clean Air Act — the law passed in 1963 and subsequently amended several times — as well as the so-called "Endangerment Findings" approved in 2009 by the then EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson (during the Barack Obama administration).
It was December 7 of that year when the agency's head established that, precisely under the Clean Air Act, greenhouse gases represent a threat to the health and wellbeing of the population, including those emitted by internal combustion engine vehicles. It had been the Supreme Court that, two years earlier, had conferred upon the EPA itself the responsibility of determining whether CO2, methane, nitrogen dioxides and other gases did or did not pose a danger to people.
The Trump administration invents a non-existent scientific consensus
Now all of this could suddenly become a thing of the past. In a 302-page document, the Trump administration claims that there exists "a broad global scientific consensus" according to which "extreme weather events have not increased in an indisputable manner compared to historical data." This assertion is false, since on the contrary there is a near-unanimous consensus https://www.lifegate.it/clima-scienza-attribuzione within the scientific community that climate warming multiplies the frequency and intensity of extreme events. But according to Trump, reality is something else entirely. Indeed, the document even praises the supposed "benefits" guaranteed by the ability to emit greenhouse gases freely, for example in the agricultural sector.
The Trump administration said it will rescind the long-standing finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health, removing the legal foundation for all US greenhouse gas regulations reut.rs/46y6nUj
Hence the EPA's stated need to strip itself of the right to impose regulatory constraints. A nonsense, especially given that the EPA is effectively proposing to saw off its own legs: it is virtually inconceivable that an agency would ask to have fewer powers, fewer prerogatives, fewer functions — unless, precisely, for purely political reasons rooted in a profound scientific illiteracy. Not to mention that such a move would inevitably open up a massive legal battle, potentially lasting years.
Even future presidents risk being hamstrung on climate regulations
But there is more: as the American press points out, should judges rule in favour of the administration led by Donald Trump and determine that those powers do not in fact belong to the EPA, future presidents would also find it far more difficult to pass regulations aimed at curbing climate-altering emissions. They would no longer be able to use the "regulatory fast lane" guaranteed precisely by the Environmental Protection Agency's own rules.
Naturally, for Trump & co. there is only cause for celebration: "If finalised, the change will represent the greatest deregulation measure in the history of the United States," crowed Lee Zeldin, the Republican politician appointed to head the EPA by the ultra-conservative president as of January 29. One of the two nations that already today (alongside China) emits the largest quantity of greenhouse gases in the world would thus be left without guardrails, limitations, or constraints.
Killing EPA's ability to limit greenhouse gas pollution would be a catastrophic blow in our fight against climate change.
We cannot afford it.
We cannot afford it.
A new Supreme Court ruling likely on the horizon
In practical terms, a public consultation lasting 45 days will now need to take place. Once it concludes, the proposal will in all likelihood become operative — pending what will probably be a new ruling sought from the Supreme Court. However, that body now comprises six conservative justices against three progressive ones, making it hard to imagine it would seek to contradict the climate denialism currently in power in the United States.