Listen to this articleListen to this article | 5 minsinfoThe United States has revoked a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for its actions to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.The decision on Thursday is the most aggressive move by President Donald Trump to roll back environmental regulations since the start of his second term.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listUnder his leadership, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalised a rule rescinding a 2009 government declaration known as the “endangerment finding”.It is the legal underpinning for nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.Established under the presidency of Democrat Barack Obama, the finding establishes that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare.But President Trump, a Republican, has called climate change a “hoax” and a “con job”. The endangerment finding, he argued, is “one of the greatest scams in history”, adding that it “had no basis in fact” or law.“On the contrary, over the generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty all over the world,” Trump said at a White House ceremony on Thursday.He hailed the repeal of the endangerment finding as “the single largest deregulatory action in American history, by far”.EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, who also attended the ceremony, described the endangerment finding as “the Holy Grail of federal regulatory overreach”.Rescinding the endangerment finding repeals all greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks. It could also unleash a broader unravelling of climate regulations on stationary sources such as power plants and oil and gas facilities, experts say. Advertisement But Thursday’s new rule is likely to face pushback in the US court system.Overturning the finding will “raise more havoc” than other actions Trump has taken to roll back environmental rules, environmental law professor Ann Carlson told The Associated Press news agency.Environmental groups described the move as the single biggest attack in US history against federal authority to address climate change. Evidence backing up the endangerment finding has only grown stronger in the 17 years since it was approved, they said.As part of Thursday’s decision, the EPA also announced it will end tax credits for automakers who install automatic start-stop ignition systems in their vehicles. The device is intended to reduce emissions, but Zeldin said “everyone hates” it.Zeldin, a former Republican congressman who was tapped by Trump to lead EPA last year, has criticised his Democratic predecessors, saying that, in the name of tackling climate change, they were “willing to bankrupt the country”.The endangerment finding “led to trillions of dollars in regulations that strangled entire sectors of the United States economy, including the American auto industry”, Zeldin said, criticising the leadership of Obama and former President Joe Biden in particular.“The Obama and Biden administrations used it to steamroll into existence a left-wing wish list of costly climate policies, e …
