In a move that could nullify all environmental laws limiting tailpipe emissions and other greenhouse gases that are warming the Earth, and end all government progress towards limiting or reversing climate change, Lee Zeldin, the head of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced July 29 that he is planning to revoke the landmark 2009 scientific finding called “the Endangerment Finding” that underpins the EPA’s mandate to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.
The “Endangerment Finding” of 2009 is the accepted scientific conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere endangers the health and welfare of current and future generations. The finding has served as the basis for regulating coal-fired power plants, tailpipe emissions and other pollution from factories, drilling and other industrial pursuits. Repeal of the endangerment finding will give a green light to polluters and stop all progress towards reducing climate change.
EPA Administrator Zeldin doesn’t know the mission of the U.S. E.P.A.
EPA Administrator Zeldin said in March 12 a press release that he is
“Redirecting enforcement resources to EPA’s core mission to relieve the economy of unnecessary bureaucratic burdens that drive up costs for American consumers.”
But that’s not EPA’s mission.
The agency’s mission, stated on the agency’s own website, is “To protect human health and the environment.” Nowhere in its mission does it state that the agency’s mandate is to ameliorate the economy or “relieve bureaucratic burdens.”
Zeldin has no background in environmental technology, science or environmental law.
He is a climate change denier and is openly working to gut climate regulations.
Convicted felon, sexual abuser and President Trump, who has no background or training in science, has called climate change a “hoax” and “one of the great scams” and downplays its damaging impacts of increasingly hot temperatures, drought, more severe storms and flooding and rising sea levels.
During his own confirmation hearing, Zeldin acknowledged the existence of climate change saying, “I believe that climate change is real,” and told Congress “We must, with urgency, be addressing these issues.”
But Zeldin apparently lied about his views and is now using his opportunity as head of the EPA to gut all climate regulations and give polluters free rein to destroy the environment in pursuit of profits.