The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: For Shame! Trump’s EPA Will Strike Down Ruling Making Carbon a Pollutant
Dear Diary. We know by now that there isn’t much hope left for us to keep our livable climate due to Trump’s election. That conclusion got reaffirmed yesterday when the Washington Post uncovered plans to torpedo the EPA, neutering its ability to regulate carbon pollution initially put in place by the Obama and Biden administrations.
What was established in 2009 was just baby steps that the U.S. made to become the world leader for climate mitigation, culminating in the Paris Accords in 2015. President Obama should have declared a climate emergency but did not. Now those first forays by government to confront the climate crisis will disappear because of Trump. And oh, by the way, the private sector has not and will not behave enough to fix our climate without the strong hand of government taking charge through regulation.
Here are more details from the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/02/26/epa-endangerment-finding-trump-climate
EPA urges White House to strike down landmark climate finding
Trump officials are weighing whether to repeal the “endangerment finding,” which says that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare.
Updated February 26, 2025
Lee Zeldin speaks Jan. 16 during his confirmation hearing to be Environmental Protection Agency administrator. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has privately urged the White House to strike down a scientific finding underpinning much of the federal government’s push to combat climate change, according to three people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
The 2009 “endangerment finding” cleared the way for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act by concluding that the planet-warming gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. The Obama and Biden administrations usedthat determination to set strict limits on emissions from cars and power plants.
By repealing the endangerment finding, the Trump administration would be taking one of its most consequential steps yet to derail federal climate efforts. In recent days, the administration has also blocked work that is central to international climate research and barred federal scientists and diplomats from attending a major climate event in China.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump told reporters during his first meeting with his Cabinet that Zeldin is considering cutting 65 percent of the EPA’s workforce.
“I spoke with Lee Zeldin, and he thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from Environmental,” Trump said, adding that many EPA staffers “weren’t doing their job, they were just obstructionists.”
Asked about Trump’s remark, a White House official said the president was referring to a 65 percent cut in overall spending at the EPA, rather than staffing levels. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
“President Trump, DOGE, and Administrator Zeldin are … committed to eliminating 65% of the EPA’s wasteful spending,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers added in an email.
During Trump’s first term, EPA officials weighed whether to reverse the endangerment finding but opted not to do so.
Conservatives have argued that repealing the finding is critical to unraveling what they see as burdensome limits on emissions from various sectors of the economy. Environmentalists, in contrast, say the finding has justified stronger regulations that have yielded enormous benefits for the planet and public health.
Smog lingers over the downtown Los Angeles skyline on Dec. 6. (Etienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images)
On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order that tasked the EPA with reviewing the “legality and continuing applicability of” the endangerment finding. The order gave Zeldin 30 days to submit recommendations to Russell Vought, the head of the White House budget office.
EPA officials have not shared the recommendations publicly. EPA spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou declined to comment on the matter Tuesday, saying in an email, “PA is in compliance with this aspect of the President’s Executive Order.”
Mandy Gunasekara, who served as EPA chief of staff at the end of Trump’s first term and wrote the EPA chapter in the conservative blueprint Project 2025, has been advising the administration on repealing the endangerment finding, according to the three individuals briefed on the matter.
Jonathan Brightbill, who was a top deputy in the Justice Department’s environment and natural resources division during Trump’s first term, has also provided legal advice, thesepeople said. Brightbill recently served on the Trump transition team at the Justice Department and is a partner at the law firm Winston & Strawn.
Gunasekara and Brightbill did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The endangerment finding has sparked legal and political battles in Washington for more than 15 years. In 2007, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. In response, the EPA first issued the endangerment finding and then established the first-ever carbon limits for vehicles and power plants.
During Trump’s first term, skeptics of mainstream climate science filed a petition asking the EPA to repeal the determination. But agency lawyers rejected that petition on Trump’s last day in office in 2021.
Allies of the fossil fuel industry cheered the idea that the administration would revisit the issue.
“They unfortunately didn’t do this in the first term, so I’m pleased to see that they’re working on this in the second term,” said Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, an advocacy group for the oil and gas sector.
Myron Ebell, who led the EPA transition team during Trump’s first term, said nixing the endangerment finding could make it easier to overturn Biden-era climate policies.
“If you want to go back and redo one of these rules, you’re going to have a very spirited court battle if you ignore the endangerment finding,” said Ebell, the chairman of the conservative American Lands Council. “So I think they really need to do this.”
Environmental advocates said they will challenge the move in court.
“If the Trump EPA proceeds down this path and jettisons the obvious finding that climate change is a threat to our health and welfare, it will mean more polluted air and more catastrophic extreme weather for Americans,” said David Doniger, a senior strategist and attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We will see them in court.”
Sean Donahue, a lawyer who has represented environmental groups that support the endangerment finding, said he thinks any repeal effort will be struck down given the robust body of scientific evidence on the dangers of planetary warming.
“You can have a lot of good and reasonable disputes about exactly how we should be addressing climate change,” he said in a phone interview. “But the proposition that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities don’t endanger public health and welfare is not a position that could be supported by the science or what EPA’s own record suggests.”
What readers are saying
The comments express strong opposition to the potential decision by the EPA to strike down the endangerment finding, which underpins federal climate efforts. Many commenters criticize the move as anti-science, driven by greed, and harmful to future generations. They emphasize the importance of scientific evidence in addressing climate change and express concern over the prioritization of economic interests over environmental and public health. The decision is seen as a continuation of policies that ignore scientific consensus and endanger the planet.
By Maxine Joselow Maxine Joselow is a staff writer who covers climate change and the environment, with a focus on U.S. climate policy and politics. Send her secure tips on Signal at MaxineJ.55follow on X@maxinejoselow
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Thursday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)