EPA Greenhouse Gas Reversal 2025: Major Policy Shift Ahead | Shale Magazine

In late July, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced plans to rescind the Endangerment Finding that was passed by the Obama administration a decade and a half ago. In 2009, the EPA formally declared carbon dioxide a public danger, giving the agency the legal basis to cap greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from major sources such as coal power plants and cars. 

At the time, the former head of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, said, “Climate change has now become a household issue… This administration will not ignore science or the law any longer, nor will we ignore the responsibility we owe to our children and our grandchildren.”

Now, the Trump administration and current EPA head Lee Zeldin aim to undo this move. 

EPA Plans to Scrap Endangerment Finding

During a visit to an auto dealership in Indiana last week, Zeldin announced plans for the EPA to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which helped raise billions in funding for green energy projects, including the development of the electric vehicle (EV) industry. If finalized, the proposal would repeal all resulting GHG emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines, Zeldin said. He added that both the auto manufacturing industry and American consumers had suffered because of higher costs associated with the Finding over the past 15 years. 

“With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” said Zeldin. “In our work so far, many stakeholders have told me that the Obama and Biden EPAs twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year… If finalized, rescinding the Endangerment Finding and resulting regulations would end $1 trillion or more in hidden taxes on American businesses and families.”

Response to the Move

In Favor 

There has been a significant response to the EPA’s plan to rescind the Endangerment Finding, with certain industries in favor of the move while many environmental groups have shown concern. Several industries, such as automakers, could benefit from the move, while EV makers and the green energy industry would likely suffer. 

Indiana’s Governor Mike Braun said, “The Obama-Biden EPA used regulations as a political tool and hurt American competitiveness without results to show for it. Today’s announcement is a win for consumer choice, common sense, and American energy independence.” 

Meanwhile, the Texas Railroad Commissioner, Wayne Christian, stated, “Because America reduced EPA’s six major regulated pollutants by 77% over the last half century, the radical environmental movement had to invent CO₂ as a pollutant – creating a boogeyman – to justify their continued war on fossil fuels. U.S. CO₂ emissions have already declined by 20% over the past two decades, and our oil production is 23% cleaner than the global average. Meanwhile, large fossil fuel-producing nations like China and Russia continue to emit with impunity.” 

Meanwhile, the American Consumer Institute (ACI) Energy Analyst Kristen Walker said, “Revisiting the Endangerment Finding is essential in determining whether EPA has statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions on vehicles. Consumers deserve choice and affordability when buying cars and should not be hamstrung by bureaucrats in D.C. who restrict their options and hurt their pocketbooks.”

Against 

While some industry players are enthusiastic about the EPA’s plans, others are concerned about what scrapping the Endangerment Finding would mean for the environment and human health. 

One New York Times article reads, “The proposal is President Trump’s most consequential step yet to derail federal climate efforts. It marks a notable shift in the administration’s position from one that had downplayed the threat of global warming to one that essentially flatly denies the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change.”

“It would not only reverse current regulations, but, if the move is upheld in court, it could make it significantly harder for future administrations to rein in climate pollution from the burning of coal, oil and gas.”

Critics of the move argue that if the U.S. takes a step back in its efforts to undergo a green transition, it could significantly hinder international efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels, which could prompt widespread severe weather events that put the environment and human lives at risk. 

In a 150-page report following the EPA announcement, scientists from the Department of Energy (DoE) criticized the computer models that are used to predict climate change, suggesting that they often overestimate warming. They also said that carbon dioxide has positive effects, as it helps plants grow and increases agricultural productivity, and suggested that the EPA regulations have a limited effect on global temperature rise.

Environmentalists and lawyers have responded by criticizing those arguments, stating that transportation is the largest source of GHG emissions in the United States and if the U.S. motor vehicle sector were a country, it would be the fourth-biggest emitter of GHGs in the world, according to EPA data. 

According to the EPA, repealing the Finding would “save Americans $54 billion in costs annually through the repeal of all greenhouse gas standards, including the Biden EPA’s electric vehicle mandate, under conservative economic forecasts.” 

However, Dan Becker, the leader of transport policy for the environmental group the Center for Biological Diversity, said the EPA GHG rules were aimed at preventing 7 billion metric tons of emissions from entering the atmosphere, as well as saving the average U.S. driver around $6,000 in fuel and maintenance over the lifetime of vehicles built under the standards. “The E.P.A. is revoking the biggest single step any nation has taken to save oil, save consumers money at the pump and combat global warming,” explained Becker. 

On average, scientists have slammed the Trump administration’s climate report as a ‘farce’ full of misinformation, saying that many claims made in the report were based on long-debunked research. Naomi Oreskes, an expert in climate misinformation, said that the purpose of the DoE report was to “justify what is a scientifically unjustifiable failure to regulate fossil fuels”. “Science is the basis for climate regulation, so now they are trying to replace legitimate science with pseudoscience,” she added.

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