WASHINGTON: The United States has gone cold on global warming after putting climate safeguards on ice. In a sweeping move, President Donald Trump on Thursday revoked the 2009 “endangerment finding” issued under Barack Obama, which had declared that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. The ruling empowered the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon dioxide, methane and other climate pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Without it, the legal backbone of American climate policy collapses.
Calling the repeal “the single largest deregulatory action in American history,” Trump stood beside EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and framed the decision as a victory for economic growth and consumer choice. He dismissed climate science as a “scam,” arguing that regulating greenhouse gases had unfairly burdened the auto industry and raised costs.
