EPA targets air, climate, other rules in deregulation blitz

US Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin announced March 12 that the EPA is reviewing 31 regulatory actions for possible rollback. These rules include guidelines on scientific input, several emission standards for air pollutants, and the endangerment finding, a 2009 declaration that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions endanger human health—a stance that underpins many of the EPA’s climate regulations.

“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen,” Zeldin says in a statement. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more,” he says.

Industry advocacy groups the American Chemistry Council and the US Chamber of Commerce, both proponents of environmental deregulation, say the moves will reduce costs and support economic growth. But many environmental advocacy groups, including Earthjustice and the Environmental Law and Policy Center, say rolling back the regulations threatens people’s safety and may be unlawful.

Amanda Leland, executive director of the environmental advocacy group the Environmental Defense Fund, calls the plan chaotic. “EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin today announced plans for the greatest increase in pollution in decades,” she says in a statement. “Just last week, President Trump promised to ‘get toxins out of our environment . . . and keep our children healthy and strong.’ Administrator Zeldin’s plan undercuts those words. Those seeking to make America healthier should be deeply concerned,” Leland says.

One of the items on the extensive list of rules targeted for rollback is restructuring the EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), groups of scientists that provide science-based advice to the EPA administrator. In January, the EPA announced that it would “reset” the membership on these committees in order to “reverse the politicization of SAB and CASAC under the Biden-Harris Administration,” according to an EPA press release. Nominations for these boards are now open. Together with the Office of Management and Budget, the EPA will also reconsider the endangerment finding and all actions that rely on it. The endangerment finding is a 2009 conclusion by the EPA that high atmospheric concentrations of a mixture of six GHGs are a threat to public health and welfare. This action was prompted by a 2007 Supreme Court decision that GHGs are considered air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and that the EPA is required to determine if GHGs are a threat to human health.

But the current administration says in a press release that the EPA created the endangerment finding in “a flawed and unorthodox way.” The current EPA criticizes the fact that the finding was based on a combination of six GHGs instead of only carbon dioxide and that “cars don’t even omit [sic] all six.”

US senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said in a Feb. 28 statement that repealing the endangerment finding would ignore scientific consensus and gut needed emission standards. “That greenhouse gases harm public health was scientific fact when the endangerment finding was issued in 2009; 16 years later, the evidence has only gotten stronger, and the looming economic harms more dangerous,” he said.

Since the adoption of the endangerment finding, the EPA has denied 14 petitions for reconsideration. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit upheld the finding in 2012, and the Supreme Court of the US declined to hear a challenge to the finding in December 2023. But in justifying the review of the endangerment finding, the EPA points to several recent court cases that found that the agency misinterpreted the Clean Air Act when creating new regulations. These cases “have provided new guidance on how the agency should interpret statutes to discern Congressional intent and ensure that its regulations follow the law,” the EPA states.

An EPA spokesperson declined to answer questions on the timeline of the review process or next steps.