Trump Mounts Sweeping Attack on Pollution and Climate Rules
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Trump Mounts Sweeping Attack on Pollution and Climate Rules
Ari Natter and Jennifer A. Dlouhy
5 min read
(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is launching a sweeping overhaul of US environmental mandates in a campaign it billed as the “biggest deregulatory action” of its kind in US history.
The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday it will formally reconsider more than a dozen Obama- and Biden-era regulations, including mandates governing chemical plant safety and pollution curbs on electricity, as it aims to deliver on President Donald Trump’s pledge to speed US energy development. The agency described the effort as “historic actions” that “will roll back trillions in regulatory costs and hidden taxes on US families.”
“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the US and more,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a news release outlining the agency’s plans.
Zeldin’s pronouncement marks the starting gun for a long regulatory process to rewrite the regulations that could play out over years. Even then, the biggest changes are expected to face legal challenges from environmentalists who on Wednesday warned a regulatory retreat would jeopardize Americans, harming their health and their pocketbooks.
“Repealing or weakening these important safeguards on pollution from cars, power plants and oil producers would mean higher energy bills, more asthma and heart attacks, more toxins in drinking water and more extreme weather,” said Jackie Wong, a senior vice president with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Zeldin outlined plans for nearly three dozen actions. Among the most consequential is a bid to revisit the agency’s landmark 2009 endangerment finding, a formal conclusion about the risk of greenhouse gases that provides the legal foundation for EPA climate change rules.
The EPA’s wide-ranging plans to rewrite — and even scrap — environmental regulations align with Trump’s promises to eliminate rules that impede oil, gas and electricity production. They come even as scientists warn the world needs to rapidly curtail greenhouse gas emissions to restrain global warming and avoid escalating, catastrophic consequences of climate change.
The success of an attack on the endangerment finding, which could take years and would face inevitable legal challenges, isn’t a foregone conclusion. The Supreme Court in 2007 affirmed the agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Two years later in its endangerment finding, the EPA determined greenhouse gases constituted a threat that merited regulation.
The effort has divided even the energy industry, with some warning that eliminating the finding — and the regulations it supports — could revive public nuisance lawsuits against oil producers and power plant operators. Under a 2010 Supreme Court decision, federal climate regulation tied to the Clean Air Act has effectively precluded those claims.
Zeldin said he was targeting an array of other rules for reconsideration, including Biden-era mandates curbing greenhouse gas pollution from the nation’s power plants and pollution curbs on cars and light trucks that are so strict they effectively compel automakers to sell electric vehicles.
Trump has frequently taken aim at what he calls an “EV mandate,” and the president has promised to “open dozens and dozens” of power plants to help meet an expected surge in energy demand from data centers and manufacturing.
During Trump’s first term, the EPA used a similar approach to undo former President Barack Obama’s sweeping Clean Power Plan, which also targeted the electricity sector’s emissions. In its place, Trump’s EPA substituted modest requirements focused on emission reductions that could be achieved at individual power plants through improvements in efficiency. Another, similar shift now might prolong the lifespan for some coal plants that would otherwise have to shut down — or swiftly employ carbon capture technology — under the Biden-era regulation.
Zeldin outlined an array of targets, including:
Measures requiring energy companies to replace equipment and stem leaks of methane from oil and gas wells. Some oil industry leaders have warned the administration against a complete repeal of the methane mandates, arguing that could imperil the opportunity to sell US natural gas to European countries.
Requirements for greenhouse gas releases to be reported to the federal government. The US is obligated to maintain a greenhouse gas inventory as part of its adoption of a decades-old international agreement known as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Wastewater pollution curbs on coal power plants.
Requirements for refineries, chemical plants and other facilities to maintain risk management programs, meant to counter the risk of catastrophic accidents. The requirements were stiffened under former President Joe Biden.
Ambient air quality standards limiting fine particulate matter, including soot.
Zeldin did not detail a timeframe for the actions, many of which are likely to fall to the same set of agency experts in air pollution regulation. Executing the entire portfolio — with proposed rule, public comment periods and final actions — is set to be a mammoth undertaking.
Chemical and oil association representatives praised the effort, but some had a relatively measured reaction.
Abrupt shifts in policy aren’t always welcomed by large companies. Regulatory upheaval can make it harder to justify investment decisions that can take decades to pay off. And changes driven by Trump, if later rejected in federal court, can force regulated industries to race to implement older, stricter mandates.
For instance, a sharp pullback on car pollution standards could make it harder for US automakers to compete with rivals making electric vehicles overseas.
The president of Alliance for Automotive Innovation, John Bozzella, said it’s “positive” that the EPA intends to revisit greenhouse gas emissions rules. But he warned that “a balanced approach” is “key to preserving vehicle choice,” and “keeping the industry globally competitive.”
Some oil industry advocates cheered the plans. Anne Bradbury, chief executive officer of the American Exploration and Production Council, praised Zeldin for taking “important steps to improve EPA’s regulatory framework.”
“We look forward to continue to work with the Trump administration and EPA on the next step to support updating these rules so that the American people can continue to benefit from affordable, reliable and clean made-in-America energy,” she said in a news release.
