Trump administration takes aim at climate, pollution regulations

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced plans to dismantle climate regulations in what it calls “the greatest day of deregulation in U.S. history.”

That rollback includes a move to overturn key findings that underpin the regulation of greenhouse gases.

“I think the result will be that we will not be holding polluters accountable. And maybe that's part of what they want,” says David Cash, former EPA New England regional administrator. “For all of us, that means dirtier air, dirtier water, hurtling faster toward the climate crisis, and missing the lower costs and innovation and green jobs that would come with moving to the clean energy future.”

What is the EPA proposing to do?

“What they want to do is roll back many regulations, something on the order of 30. The big one is the climate change endangerment finding. Essentially, in the mid-2000s, with support of the Supreme Court, the EPA found that CO2 and other greenhouse gases essentially endanger people. All you have to do is think of the wildfires, you can think of hot days where people have more asthma attacks, and the general damage to the environment and to public health from climate change. And so under the Clean Air Act, the EPA has a right to regulate that, and that's exactly what the EPA has been doing.”

 If these deregulations go into effect, what impact will we see on air quality?

“Air quality will go down.

“CO2 is one of the pollutants that comes from your tailpipe. It comes from a power plant, but so is soot, particulates, [sulfur dioxide], you've probably all heard of those. Some of those cause local public health problems, like greater asthma attacks. We'll see more of those. More cancer, we'll see more of that. More heart disease, we'll see more of that. But we'll also see the things that pollute the atmosphere that cause climate change to increase as well. And so we'll see greater storms, more wildfires, greater sea level rise, all of those kinds of things as well.”

The new EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, says this is about prices and jobs: a new “golden age,” as he put it. Is he right that there are at least parts of this that could be good for the economy?

“[The] EPA has the role to protect human health and the environment, but it does so based on its regulations that protect industry as well. And the kinds of investments that have been made, particularly in the last four years, not only protect our human health, not only protect the environment, but have driven huge investments all over the country in urban areas, in rural areas, in places where people want to move to clean energy and invest in them. It's not a surprise that a group of farmers sued EPA today because they were supposed to be getting some of the climate change grant funding that's been illegally frozen.”

Have these changes over the last few years made anything harder that shouldn't be harder?  Is there anything, for example, that you've wanted to see happen that might get easier as a result of these rollbacks?

"I'm not sure of the ones that I've seen. I don't think so. I mean, all of the processes that we went through in the Biden administration that take many, many months, engage many different stakeholders, have industry at the table so that these regulations can be designed in such a way that can protect the air you breathe and the water you drink and do it in a way that industry can come along. And there are many industries like the automotive that have been excited to see the regulations that provide clarity and certainty about what they should be making investments in, which is why electric vehicles are spreading faster and faster every year.”

 How much of this can the EPA do legally? Will it end up in the courts?

“There are a couple of buckets here. The regulatory changes, it sounds like they're planning on following the rules to change regulations. Those take a long time. They're administrative law processes.

“Our antennas are up because we've also seen what seemed like incredibly unlawful acts — the freezing of federal funding that was required by Congress, the freezing of some of the grants that are going to go to communities all over this country who have labored under legacy pollution, and the use of the FBI to target it a bunch of recipients of grants — also seems like a major power overreach by the administration at this point. So, we'll see both of those.”

Thomas Danielian produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.