Rep. Troy Carter Statement on Trump Rescinding EPA’s Longstanding Endangerment Finding
NEW ORLEANS, LA – Today, Congressman Troy A. Carter, Sr. (D-LA) released the following statement after the Trump Administration moved to reverse the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) longstanding “endangerment finding,” the scientific finding that climate pollution harms human health and the environment under the Clean Air Act:
“Today, Trump and Administrator Zeldin proposed a plan making climate denial official federal policy. More air pollution means more extreme weather and worse public health. This is our future if the Trump Administration carries out its ‘Climate Chaos Plan.’
“These actions will intensify droughts and floods, prolong heat waves in the summer, and make freak winter storms more common. Increased air pollution will diminish drinking water quality and availability, threaten our food security by hindering agriculture, leading to food insecurity and malnutrition, particularly in vulnerable populations. This ‘Polluters First Agenda’ will cause Americans' health care expenses to soar as health conditions exacerbated by air pollution, such as asthma, heart and respiratory diseases, and birth defects, become more common.
“Americans expect an EPA that lives up to its mission of protecting the environment and public health. The Trump Administration instead continues to undermine those core values and substantially weaken safeguards meant to shield our health and welfare.”
Background:
The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to protect people from “any air pollutant” that the agency deems “causes or contributes to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”
The 2007 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Massachusetts vs. EPA determined that carbon pollution and other climate-warming pollutants (greenhouse gases) are “air pollutants” as defined by the Clean Air Act. The court directed the EPA to make a final scientific determination whether these pollutants endanger health or welfare.
In 2009, the EPA determined that carbon dioxide, methane, and four other climate pollutants endanger public health. The agency has repeatedly reaffirmed that pollution from power plants, oil and gas operations, and cars, trucks, buses, planes, and other transportation contribute to that danger. The EPA's Endangerment Finding was challenged in court by radical right-wing groups like the Heritage Foundation and Competitive Enterprise Institute, and red-state political figures. The D.C. Circuit of Appeals upheld the finding based on the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting it. The Supreme Court denied additional review.
Later Supreme Court decisions have limited the scope of some EPA climate protections. But none of those decisions undermined the original basis for the Endangerment Finding and the EPA’s duty to act under the law
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