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The Trump administration is expected this week to rescind a legal opinion that has guided emissions controls in the U.S. since the Obama era, withdrawing the so-called endangerment finding of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The finding has been the legal and scientific basis for American climate action since 2009, when the EPA responded to a Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases were harming Americans.
Since then it has guided how the EPA and other U.S. agencies regulate greenhouse gases in everything from industrial facilities to vehicles. Without it, all those rules could be completely scrapped.
Why is the U.S. doing this now?
The Trump administration has refocused the U.S. government on supporting the fossil fuel industry, in part to boost exports of oil and and gas and to lower energy prices for consumers.
President Donald Trump ordered the EPA to look into the legality of the endangerment finding last year, aiming to remove what he called “ideologically motivated” regulations on energy, especially fossil fuels.
Critics say it’s part of a long campaign by Trump-allied officials and lawyers to dismantle climate regulation. The endangerment finding has held back the administration from completely removing all emissions regulations.
“Even under the first Trump administration, the EPA wasn’t willing to take on the endangerment finding. So they weakened the Obama administration’s regulations of power plants and motor vehicle emissions, but they didn’t repeal them entirely,” said Kathryn Harrison, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia, who specializes in climate policy.
Rescinding the finding would be “a big setback for American climate policy — saying that greenhouse gas emissions don’t endanger public health and current future generations,” said Keith Brooks, programs director at the Canadian climate advocacy group Environmental Defence.
What rules could be affected?
Brooks says the immediate impacts would be on U.S. power plants, which in 2009 were largely fuelled by coal.
Because of, in part, the endangerment finding, the EPA was able to reduce the role of coal, replacing it with cleaner burning gas plants and renewables.
Methane regulations could also be scrapped, Brooks says. The potent greenhouse gas is responsible for one-third of global warming, and reducing those emissions is seen as critical to maintaining a stable climate.
Vehicle emission standards could also be relaxed, putting the U.S. farther back in the global EV race by reducing pressure on automakers to make zero-emission vehicles.
Will the move be challenged?
The endangerment finding followed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2007 that greenhouse gases were harming Americans, and which directed the government to act.
Harrison says rescinding it will likely be challenged in court by many groups or even states.
The Supreme Court’s opinion of its original ruling is unclear, but it is more heavily stacked with conservative judges now than in 2007.
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What does this mean for Canada?
Brooks says this could lead to a divide between the U.S. and Canada on vehicle standards, something on which both countries have historically been in lockstep.
That said, just last week Prime Minister Mark Carney announced new vehicle emissions standards that Brooks sees as a sign that Canada is already moving away from the U.S. on clean energy policies.
“We have to be able to go our own way,” he said.
“It’s important that a set back in the United States, though it sets back efforts to fight climate change, [shouldn’t] set back policy and actual efforts to reduce emissions here in Canada.”
Harrison says removing the endangerment finding will continue the Trump administration’s elevation of climate change denial, something that Canadians will have to be vigilant about.
“We need to be vigilant and hold firm on the climate fight and see that there is a global energy transition happening,” Brooks said.
“These clean energy technologies, solar power, batteries, electric vehicles, they are just better. And if we pretend that this is not happening, if we sit this transition out, we are going to fall behind.”
