Extreme Temperature Diary- Thursday July 31st, 2025/Main Topic: ‘Exceptionally Dangerous’: Trump EPA Targets Endangerment Finding That Enables Climate Rules

https://twitter.com/algore/status/1950243266009407579
https://twitter.com/EJinAction/status/1950298155431366796
https://twitter.com/CCLSVN/status/1950561941505675418

https://www.commondreams.org/news/exceptionally-dangerous-trump-epa-targets-endangerment-finding-that-enables-climate-rules

‘Exceptionally Dangerous’: Trump EPA Targets Endangerment Finding That Enables Climate Rules

“Zeldin’s assertion that the EPA shouldn’t address greenhouse gas emissions is like a fire chief claiming that they shouldn’t fight fires,” said one critic. “It is as malicious as it is absurd.”

Jessica Corbett Jul 29, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump‘s administration faced an onslaught of criticism on Tuesday for starting the process of repealing the 2009 legal opinion that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the welfare of the American people—which has enabled federal regulations aimed at the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency over the past 15 years.

Confirming reports from last week, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin unveiled the rule to rescind the 2009 “endangerment finding” at a truck dealership in Indiana. According to The New York Times, he said that “the proposal would, if finalized, amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.”

U.S. President Donald Trump‘s administration faced an onslaught of criticism on Tuesday for starting the process of repealing the 2009 legal opinion that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the welfare of the American people—which has enabled federal regulations aimed at the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency over the past 15 years.

Confirming reports from last week, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin unveiled the rule to rescind the 2009 “endangerment finding” at a truck dealership in Indiana. According to The New York Times, he said that “the proposal would, if finalized, amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.”

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

Quality journalism. Progressive values. Direct to your inbox.

If the administration succeeds in repealing the legal finding, the EPA would lack authority under the Clean Air Act to impose standards for greenhouse gas emissions—meaning the move would kill vehicle regulations. As with the reporting last week, the formal announcement was sharply condemned by climate and health advocates and experts.

“Greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and are the root cause of the climate crisis,” said Deanna Noël with Public Citizen’s Climate Program, ripping the administration’s effort as “grossly misguided and exceptionally dangerous.”

“This isn’t just a denial of science and reality—it’s a betrayal of public trust and yet another signal that this administration is working for corporate interests, and no one else.”

If the administration succeeds in repealing the legal finding, the EPA would lack authority under the Clean Air Act to impose standards for greenhouse gas emissions—meaning the move would kill vehicle regulations. As with the reporting last week, the formal announcement was sharply condemned by climate and health advocates and experts.

“Greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and are the root cause of the climate crisis,” said Deanna Noël with Public Citizen’s Climate Program, ripping the administration’s effort as “grossly misguided and exceptionally dangerous.”

“This isn’t just a denial of science and reality—it’s a betrayal of public trust and yet another signal that this administration is working for corporate interests, and no one else.”

“Stripping the EPA of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases is like throwing away the fire extinguisher while the house is already burning,” she warned. “The administration is shamelessly handing Big Oil a hall pass to pollute unchecked and dodge accountability, leaving working families to bear the costs through worsening health outcomes, rising energy bills, more climate-fueled extreme weather, and an increasingly unstable future. This isn’t just a denial of science and reality—it’s a betrayal of public trust and yet another signal that this administration is working for corporate interests, and no one else.”

Noël was far from alone in accusing the administration’s leaders of serving the polluters who helped Trump return to power.

“Zeldin and Trump are concerned only with maximizing short-term profits for polluting corporations and the CEOs funneling millions of dollars to their campaign coffers,” said Jim Walsh, policy director at Food & Water Watch. “Zeldin’s assertion that the EPA shouldn’t address greenhouse gas emissions is like a fire chief claiming that they shouldn’t fight fires. It is as malicious as it is absurd.”

Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign, similarly said that the proposal is “purely a political bow to the oil industry” and “Trump is putting fealty to Big Oil over sound science and people’s health.”

Earthworks policy director Lauren Pagel also called the rule “a perverse gift to the fossil fuel industry that rejects yearslong efforts by the agency, scientists, NGOs, frontline communities, and industry to protect public health and our environment.”

Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are playing with fire—and with floods and droughts and public health risks, too,” she stressed, as about 168 million Americans on Tuesday faced advisories for extreme heat made more likely by the climate crisis.

🚨 The Trump administration just took its most extreme step yet in rolling back climate protections.

Sierra Club (@sierraclub.org) 2025-07-29T20:58:45.644Z

Justin Chen, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents over 8,000 EPA workers nationwide, said that the repeal plan “is reckless and will have far-reaching, disastrous consequences for the USA.”

“EPA career professionals have worked for decades on the development of the science and policy of greenhouse gases to protect the American public,” he continued, “and this policy decision completely disregards all of their work in service to the public.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) highlighted that Chris Wright, head of the Department of Energy, joined Zeldin at the Tuesday press conference and “announced a DOE ‘climate science study’ alongside remarks that were rife with climate denial talking points and disinformation.”

UCS president Gretchen Goldman said that “it’s abundantly clear what’s going on here. The Trump administration refuses to acknowledge robust climate science and is using the kitchen sink approach: making every specious argument it can to avoid complying with the law.”

“But getting around the Clean Air Act won’t be easy,” she added. “The science establishing climate harms to human health was unequivocally clear back in 2009, and more than 15 years later, the evidence has only accumulated.”

Today, Zeldin’s EPA plans to release a proposal to revoke the Endangerment Finding, which is the legal & scientific foundation of EPA’s responsibility to limit climate-heating greenhouse gas pollution from major sources.

Moms Clean Air Force (@momscleanairforce.org) 2025-07-29T16:58:29.953Z

David Bookbinder, director of law and policy at the Environmental Integrity Project, was a lead attorney in the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case Massachusetts vs. EPA, which affirmed the agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and ultimately led to the endangerment finding two years later.

Bookbinder said Tuesday that “because this approach has already been rejected by the courts—and doubtless will be again—this baseless effort to pretend that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses that cause climate change are not harmful pollutants is nothing more than a transparent attempt to delay and derail our efforts to control greenhouse pollution at the worst possible time, when deadly floods and heat waves are killing more people every day.”

In a statement from the Environmental Protection Network, which is made up of ex-EPA staff, Joseph Goffman, former assistant administrator of the agency’s Office of Air and Radiation, also cited the 2007 ruling.

“This decision is both legally indefensible and morally bankrupt,” Goffman said of the Tuesday proposal. “The Supreme Court made clear that EPA cannot ignore science or evade its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act. By walking away from the endangerment finding, EPA has not only broken with precedent; it has broken with reality.”

Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, responded to the EPA proposal with defiance, declaring that “Donald Trump and his Big Oil donors are lighting the world on fire and fueling their private jets with young people’s lives. We refuse to be sacrifices for their greed. We’re coming for them, and we’re not backing down.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Jessica Corbett

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1949546391782437208
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1949545217406668946
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1949537355611717878

We now live in the Pyrocene, a proposed new geologic epoch of fire activity brought about by human-caused climate change. Living in the Pyrocene means a new reality: knowing what the latest wildfire smoke forecasts are, in order to plan your outdoor activities. I review the best tools to do so:

Dr. Jeff Masters (@drjeffmasters.bsky.social) 2025-07-30T11:52:51.898Z
https://twitter.com/CCLSVN/status/1950916051619008950
https://twitter.com/CCLSVN/status/1950916585373253959
https://twitter.com/climateguyw/status/1950634654987423915
https://twitter.com/climateguyw/status/1950249387818701215
https://twitter.com/CCLSVN/status/1950558491170759122

There is a new world record for the longest lightning flash – 515 miles!The World Meteorological Organization has certified a lightning flash that extended from near Dallas, TX, to near Kansas City, MO, on October 22, 2017, as the new longest lightning flash.⚡🧪🧵(1/3)wmo.int/media/news/w…

Chris Vagasky (@coweatherman.bsky.social) 2025-07-31T13:46:51.909Z
https://twitter.com/CCLSVN/status/1950923967382106161
https://twitter.com/CanaryMediaInc/status/1950927528110993587
https://twitter.com/CCLSVN/status/1950914180946776152
https://twitter.com/CCLSVN/status/1950914771425079483
https://twitter.com/CCLSVN/status/1950559904475045928
https://twitter.com/CCLSVN/status/1950556410783367434
https://twitter.com/CCLSVN/status/1950561286313725988
https://twitter.com/CCLSVN/status/1950913244866154754

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *