Environmental Protection Agency disregards public safety if it relinquishes responsibility for air pollution

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to rescind the endangerment finding that has served as the basis for the Clean Air Act since 2009. If overturned, the EPA would betray its inherent purpose of protecting the environment and population against climate risks, while also opening the door for corporations to leak harmful pollutants into the air unregulated. 

Currently, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are air pollutants that the EPA’s endangerment finding established as being harmful to people’s welfare and therefore federally regulated under the Clean Air Act. 

President Donald Trump’s administration is attempting to overturn the endangerment finding by pulling at semantics and bringing into question whether the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases at all. The current legal browbeating is primarily focused on getting the EPA to roll back its greenhouse gas regulations on corporations, particularly in the transportation sector.

The Supreme Court legally allowed the EPA to place greenhouse gas regulations on corporations through the ruling of the Massachusetts v. EPA decision in 2007. The decision outlined that if the EPA can prove emissions of greenhouse gases from motor vehicles contribute to climate change and endanger people’s health, then they should be regulated. According to the EPA website, the 2009 endangerment finding solidified the court’s decision. 

However, Trump’s administration is upholding that regulating greenhouse gas emissions will be the pummeling that the current economy will just not be able to recover from. The Trump administration petitioners’ July 29 opening brief pointed out how continuing to weigh the transportation sector down in emission regulations will not come without “raising unusually significant economic and political issues,” according to Brownstein, a lobbying firm.

The EPA itself is rolling over to the administration’s legal attack against the endangerment finding, allowing the administration to cherry-pick whichever established act protects people against climate disasters, without much of a fight. 

“Alongside President Trump, we are living up to our promises to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, and work hand-in-hand with our state partners to advance our shared mission,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in an announcement reported by The New York Times. 

Rescinding the endangerment finding will allow the transportation sector to throw out its greenhouse gas emission standards for all vehicles and engines with model years 2012-2027 and any emerging vehicles in the market. 

The EPA’s failure to protect the public from these legally and scientifically proven harmful air pollutants only serves to benefit the fossil fuel industry, which requires cars and consumers to be reliant on gas. 

The environment and population will, in turn, feel the exacerbated climate change effects that the EPA is closely regulating through the Clean Air Act and, in extension, the endangerment finding. Acid rain, urban air pollution build-up and toxic air emissions are some climate disasters the public could stand to face if the endangerment finding gets overturned.

The legal attack against the endangerment finding is not the only thing Trump’s administration launched against the EPA, with more than two dozen rules and policies coming under scrutiny last spring. Trump is attempting to dismantle the EPA’s ability to protect the public against climate change while reaping in the fringe benefits of pleasing America’s corporations in doing so. 

The EPA and Trump’s administrations are walking hand-in-hand away from climate pollution regulation. The EPA is essentially moving forward with reevaluating its own role in air pollution regulation and the legal basis of the endangerment finding without much resistance. 

“This signal to deregulate air pollution is diametrically opposed to the obligation the EPA has to protect public health,” said Conrad Schneider, senior director for the U.S. at the Clean Air Task Force, in a statement to NPR.

The majority of areas in the U.S. currently exceed national air quality standards due to a variety of pollutants, including vehicle emissions. There are also 156.1 million Americans living in places with unhealthy levels of ozone and particle pollution, according to the American Lung Association.  

The EPA needs to reassess its role in allowing the current administration to override foundational air pollution findings that protect public health and the environment.

The EPA needs to stand up against climate attacks that are emerging, whether that be in the form of the current presidential administration’s legal attacks or escalating climate disasters. If they do not, the EPA reduces itself to a mere political instrument at the expense of the public it serves.