"On February 10, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would ditch its "endangerment finding" -the mechanism that allows the government to regulate climate pollution. It's "the single biggest attack in U.S. history on federal authority to tackle the climate crisis," Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a recent press briefing. Here's a brief primer on what the rule is and what the repeal might mean."
"In 2009, the EPA issued a ruling saying that six greenhouse gases-including carbon dioxide and methane-were a danger to public health and welfare, citing a mountain of scientific evidence. The EPA issues similar "endangerment findings" for every pollutant it regulates, from mercury to ozone. (In the case of greenhouse gases, it's known as the endangerment finding because it was a landmark decision.) Once an endangerment finding is in place, the EPA is required to regulate the pollutant and propose emission standards."
"When the Clean Air Act passed in 1970, it tasked the EPA with regulating pollutants that threaten health or welfare-including the climate. The agency didn't initially regulate greenhouse gases, but in the late 1990s it acknowledged it had the authority to act. In 2003, the Bush EPA reversed course, declaring that CO2 and other greenhouse gases weren't air pollutants. The Supreme Court overruled that four years later, calling greenhouse gases "unambiguously" pollutants and ordering the EPA to act on science and set vehicle standards."
In 2009 the EPA found six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, endanger public health and welfare based on extensive scientific evidence. An endangerment finding triggers statutory obligations for the EPA to regulate pollutants and propose emission standards under the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act assigned the EPA responsibility to regulate pollutants in 1970, and subsequent legal history included a 2003 reversal by the Bush administration and a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that declared greenhouse gases pollutants and required EPA action. The endangerment finding enabled rules addressing methane from oil and gas, power plant emissions, and vehicle greenhouse gas standards.
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