Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency will consider rescinding the so-called endangerment finding that triggers the regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. In a prior post, I explained why this is a fool's errand, and elaborated on some of the relevant points in this webinar.
My prior comments assumed that the agency was planning to do what Zeldin and others had publicly suggested: Rescind the primary finding that the emission of greenhouse gases "cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare." Given the precautionary nature of this language, taking this course would have required the Agency to disavow virtually everything it has said in the past 35 years about the potential consequences of climate change, among other things. It would be a morass.
Yet if the EPA's primary goal is to rescind greenhouse gas regulations imposed on stationary sources, and prevent the adoption of new such regulations, it has an alternative approach--an approach that is more of a targeted bank shot than a frontal assault on the endangerment determination and, judging from this E&E News story, it is a potential approach that is getting more attention.
