Whitehouse Slams EPA Repeal of Endangerment Finding, Vehicle Emissions Standards

The bedrock scientific determination underpins EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations.  Repealing it while gutting emissions standards for vehicles sets the stage to roll back regulations on power plants, airplanes, and more.

Washington, D.C.—U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), issued the following statement after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the proposed repeal of EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding, a scientific determination that greenhouse gases are harmful to human health and welfare.  The endangerment finding underpins all greenhouse gas regulation, and repealing it would ignore overwhelming scientific evidence and set the stage for rolling back regulations on power plants, airplanes, and more—making it easier to pollute.   EPA is seizing the opportunity to propose gutting vehicle standards in the same regulatory action.

“The endangerment finding is the bedrock scientific finding underpinning EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations, and the Trump Administration’s repeal has the fossil fuel industry’s oily fingerprints all over it.  That greenhouse gases harm public welfare was supported by overwhelming scientific evidence when the endangerment finding was issued in 2009; 16 years later, the evidence has only gotten stronger, and the looming economic harms more dangerous.  Administrator Zeldin’s corrupt giveaway doesn’t change the science, but by wishing away the problem, this Administration leaves EPA without the tools to forge a solution. 

“The vehicle emissions rollbacks will unleash unchecked greenhouse gas pollution and leave us dangerously unprepared for the deadlier storms, disappearing coastlines, and more intense heat from unmitigated climate change.  EPA had a chance to save 40,000 lives and help families save more than $1.7 trillion in fuel costs, but Trump chose his fossil fuel megadonors over the American people.  Thanks to EPA’s pay-to-play corruption, Big Oil gets to sell more gas while American families foot the bill.

“While there is no substitute for federal action to limit carbon pollution, I expect that states and cities across the country will try to fill the void created by EPA’s shameful retreat, and the oil and gas industry, facing a patchwork of regulatory regimes, will rue the day it put this awful scheme in motion.”