Trump revokes basis of US climate regulation and ends vehicle emission standards

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration announced on Feb 12 the repeal of a scientific finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and the elimination of federal tailpipe emissions standards for cars and trucks.

It is the most sweeping climate change policy rollback by the administration to date, after a string of regulatory cuts and other moves intended to unfetter fossil fuel development and stymie the roll-out of clean energy.

“Under the process just completed by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), we are officially terminating the so-called endangerment finding, a disastrous Obama-era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and drove up prices for American consumers,” US President Donald Trump said, adding that it was the biggest deregulatory action in the country’s history.

The EPA said in a press statement that the endangerment finding had relied on an incorrect interpretation of federal clean air laws meant to protect Americans from pollutants that do harm through local or regional exposure, not through warming the global climate.

“This flawed legal theory took the agency outside the scope of its statutory authority in multiple respects,” it said.

Mr Trump announced the repeal beside EPA administrator Lee Zeldin and White House budget director Russell Vought, who has long sought to revoke the finding and was a key architect of conservative policy blueprint, Project 2025.

Mr Trump has said he believes climate change is a “con job” and has withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement, leaving the world’s largest historic contributor to global warming out of international efforts to combat it. He has also killed Biden-era tax credits aimed at accelerating the deployment of electric cars and renewable energy.

Former president Barack Obama blasted the move on social media platform X, saying that without the endangerment finding, “we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change – all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money”.

‘Holy grail’

Mr Zeldin said the Trump administration had taken on the most consequential climate policy of the last 15 years, something the agency avoided during the US leader’s first term amid industry concern about legal and regulatory uncertainty.

“Referred to by some as the holy grail of federal regulatory overreach, the 2009 Obama EPA endangerment finding is now eliminated,” he said.

The endangerment finding was first adopted by the US in 2009, and led the EPA to take action under the Clean Air Act of 1963 to curb emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and four other heat-trapping air pollutants from vehicles, power plants and other industries.

It came about after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 in the Massachusetts versus EPA case that the agency had the authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

The repeal would remove the regulatory requirements to measure, report, certify and comply with federal greenhouse gas emission standards for cars, but may not initially apply to stationary sources such as power plants.

The transportation and power sectors are each responsible for about a quarter of US greenhouse gas output, according to EPA figures.

The EPA said the repeal and end of vehicle emission standards will save US taxpayers US$1.3 trillion (S$1.64 trillion), while the prior administration said the rules would have delivered net benefits to consumers through lower fuel costs and other savings.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, representing major automakers, did not endorse the action but said “automotive emissions regulations finalised in the previous administration are extremely challenging for automakers to achieve given the current marketplace demand for EVs (electric vehicles)”.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) said that the repeal will end up costing Americans more, despite the EPA’s statement that climate regulations have driven up costs for consumers.

“Administrator Lee Zeldin has directed EPA to stop protecting the American people from the pollution that’s causing worse storms, floods and skyrocketing insurance costs,” EDF president Fred Krupp said. “This action will lead only to more of this pollution, and that will lead to higher costs and real harms for American families.”

Under former president Joe Biden, the EPA aimed to cut passenger vehicle fleetwide tailpipe emissions by nearly 50 per cent by 2032, compared with 2027 projected levels, and forecast that between 35 per cent and 56 per cent of new vehicles sold from 2030 to 2032 would need to be electric.

The agency then estimated that the rules would result in net benefits of US$99 billion annually till the end of 2055, including US$46 billion in reduced fuel costs and US$16 billion in reduced maintenance and repair costs for drivers.

Consumers were expected to save an average of US$6,000 over the lifetime of new vehicles from reduced fuel and maintenance costs.

The coal industry celebrated the announcement on Feb 12, saying that it would help stave off retirements of ageing coal-fired power plants.

America’s Power president and chief executive Michelle Bloodworth said: “Utilities have announced plans to retire more than 55,000MW of coal-fired generation over the next five years. Reversing these retirement decisions could help offset the need to build new, more expensive electricity sources and prevent the loss of reliability attributes, such as fuel security, that the coal fleet provides.”

Uncertainty unbound

While many industry groups back the repeal of stringent vehicle emission standards, others have been reluctant to show public support for rescinding the endangerment finding because of the legal and regulatory uncertainty it could unleash.

Legal experts said the policy reversal could, for example, lead to a surge in lawsuits known as “public nuisance” actions, a pathway that had been blocked following a 2011 Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gas regulation should be left in the hands of the EPA instead of the courts.

“This may be another classic case where overreach by the Trump administration comes back to bite it,” said University of Maryland environmental law professor Robert Percival.

Environmental groups have slammed the proposed repeal as a danger to the climate. Future US administrations seeking to regulate greenhouse gas emissions would likely need to reinstate the endangerment finding, a task that could be politically and legally complex.

Several environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Earthjustice, have said they will challenge the reversal in court, setting off what could be a years-long legal battle up to the Supreme Court.

“There’ll be a lawsuit brought almost immediately, and we’ll see them in court. And we will win,” said Mr David Doniger, senior attorney at the NRDC. REUTERS