The Environmental Protection Agency has done what few in Washington dare: confront a regulatory cornerstone long treated as political scripture. In announcing its intent to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding on greenhouse gases, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has not only taken a dagger to the heart of the Obama-era climate regime, he has taken a principled stand for limited government, energy freedom, and statutory fidelity.
The Endangerment Finding, issued in December 2009, claimed that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases “endanger public health and welfare.” That conclusion served as the legal foundation for the EPA’s sweeping authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. It was always a stretch, both scientifically and statutorily. Congress never intended for the Clean Air Act – enacted in 1970 to combat smog and toxic air pollutants – to serve as a climate change statute. That authority was conjured by bureaucratic and activist courts, not by elected lawmakers.
By rescinding the Endangerment Finding, the EPA has begun to unwind what has become an economically suffocating climate command-and-control regime. That regime has imposed multi-trillion-dollar burdens on American consumers, automakers, truckers, energy producers, and small businesses – while achieving negligible impact on global temperatures. In the process, it has distorted market signals, empowered foreign adversaries, and encouraged the fiction that bureaucrats in Washington can fine-tune the global climate. (RELATED: EPA Officially Moving To Blow Up Foundation Of Left’s ‘Climate Change Religion,’ Zeldin Says)
The EPA’s legal rationale for the rescission is sound. The agency now recognizes that the Clean Air Act was never intended to regulate global phenomena like climate change. The Act authorizes regulation of “air pollutants” that have local and regional impact – not gases that are globally distributed, naturally occurring, and essential for life on Earth. The reinterpretation aligns with recent Supreme Court rulings – including West Virginia v. EPA – which reaffirm that major questions of economic and political significance require clear congressional authorization.
Critics claim the repeal will lead to environmental Armageddon. This is fearmongering, not fact. The United States has reduced carbon emissions more than any other major economy over the last two decades – not because of EPA dictates, but thanks to innovation, market forces, and cleaner-burning natural gas. The notion that the Endangerment Finding is the only barrier preventing climate catastrophe is a political fantasy propagated by those who equate government expansion with planetary salvation.
Rescinding the Finding doesn’t ban environmental stewardship, it merely returns responsibility for climate policy to Congress – where it belongs. If elected officials believe regulating carbon dioxide is necessary, they are free to legislate accordingly. But such decisions must be made by accountable representatives, not unelected regulators hiding behind decades-old statutory language that was never meant for this purpose.
The benefits of repeal are enormous. According to analyses from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and The Heritage Foundation, eliminating the greenhouse gas vehicle regulations tied to the Endangerment Finding could save consumers more than $50 billion annually and relieve small businesses of up to $170 billion in compliance costs. Reversing these policies will also revitalize consumer choice, particularly in the automobile sector, where federal mandates have distorted the market in favor of expensive, range-limited electric vehicles that many Americans neither want nor can afford.
Europe should take note. As Diana Furchgott-Roth recently noted in The Telegraph, the U.S. shift away from top-down green mandates could give American automakers a decisive edge in global competition. While European manufacturers are forced to chase increasingly draconian emissions targets and EV quotas, American automakers may soon be free to respond to actual consumer demand – producing vehicles that are affordable, reliable, and suited to the realities of American life.
The stakes are high. The Biden-era administrative state proved how quickly an unelected bureaucracy could impose sweeping restrictions in the name of climate virtue. Reversing the Endangerment Finding is not just a deregulatory action – it is a defense of the constitutional separation of powers. It is a rejection of the notion that administrative agencies can legislate by fiat.
The EPA’s move will no doubt face challenges and furious resistance from the environmental left. Let them come. The courts will now be forced to confront a question too long evaded: Does the law authorize this sweeping regulatory regime – or was it always a bureaucratic overreach built on shaky scientific and legal foundations?
Administrator Zeldin deserves credit for his resolve. In an era when too many officials govern by political calculus and media appeasement, he has chosen principle over expediency. The EPA’s proposal to rescind the Endangerment Finding may mark a turning point in the decades-long battle over the size, scope, and legitimacy of the regulatory state. It is a welcome return to sanity – and the beginning of restoring common sense to environmental policy.
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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