Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Trump rolls back landmark policy regulating greenhouse emissions

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Trump rolls back landmark policy regulating greenhouse emissions · DEEP INSIGHT

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  Speaker 1: The Environmental Protection Agency has repealed its own landmark Obama
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  Speaker 1: era assessment that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare.
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  Speaker 1: Public health and environmental groups worn today's changes could lead
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  Speaker 1: to many more premature deaths and arise in asthma attacks
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  Speaker 1: in the coming decades. Until today's shift, which is expected
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  Speaker 1: to be challenged in court, the so called endangerment finding
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  Speaker 1: has been the legal foundation for many of the federal
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  Speaker 1: government's climate regulations. William Brangham has more, and it's part
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  Speaker 1: of our ongoing series Tipping Point under.
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  Speaker 2: The EPA first made that assessment in two thousand and
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  Speaker 2: nine after an exhaustive review of the scientific evidence which
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  Speaker 2: showed that greenhouse gases were dangerously warming the planet and
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  Speaker 2: exacerbating extreme weather events and air pollution under the Clean
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  Speaker 2: Air Act. That meant the EPA was then obligated to
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  Speaker 2: regulate that pollution. But today President Trump called that finding
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  Speaker 2: a scam that had no legal or scientific basis. His
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  Speaker 2: EPA administer Vader lie Zelden called it the single largest
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  Speaker 2: act of deregulation in American history.
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  Speaker 3: The two thousand and nine Obama EPA endangerment finding is
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  Speaker 3: now eliminated. This action will save American taxpayers over one
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  Speaker 3: point three trillion dollars. What that means is lower prices,
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  Speaker 3: more choices, and an end of heavy handed climate policies.
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  Speaker 2: Environmental advocates warned that this would worsen public health and
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  Speaker 2: deal a major blow to any attempts by the US
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  Speaker 2: to lessen the impacts of climate change. For more on
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  Speaker 2: today's announcement, we are joined now by Maxine Jo Solo.
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  Speaker 2: She's a climate reporter for the New York Times. Maxine,
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  Speaker 2: thank you so much for being here. This original finding
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  Speaker 2: came out of a Supreme Court ruling Massachusetts versus the EPA,
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  Speaker 2: which said, yes, you can consider carbon pollution a pollutant,
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  Speaker 2: but you have to prove that it's detrimental to human health,
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  Speaker 2: which the Obama administration did. Since that time, how has
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  Speaker 2: the endangerment finding been used by the federal government.
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  Speaker 4: That's exactly right. And the endangerment finding did not in
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  Speaker 4: and of itself set any new climate regulations, but it
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  Speaker 4: formed the legal and scientific basis for those regulations, and
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  Speaker 4: in particular, the Obama EPA used it as the justification
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  Speaker 4: to set the first limits ever on greenhouse gas emissions
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  Speaker 4: from cars, trucks, and eventually from power plants that burn
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  Speaker 4: coal or natural gas to make electricity. And in the
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  Speaker 4: intervening years there's been a back and forth between Democratic
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  Speaker 4: Republican administrations, a weakening and a strengthening of those rules,
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  Speaker 4: but they've remained in effect, and as that litigation has
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  Speaker 4: played out.
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  Speaker 2: So now with that endangerment finding gone, what happens now?
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  Speaker 4: So today EPA said that not only were they repealing
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  Speaker 4: the endangerment finding, but they also said they were immediately
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  Speaker 4: repealing all greenhouse gas limits on cars and trucks. So
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  Speaker 4: that's already happened. And then in the coming months, EPA
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  Speaker 4: said it plans to repeal additional limits on greenhouse gases
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  Speaker 4: from power plants and other sources as well.
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  Speaker 2: The science that undergirded that first finding has not changed.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, the National Academy's last year said, not only
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  Speaker 2: is the science of that original finding accurate, but it's
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  Speaker 2: in subsequent years become more evident. How does the administration
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  Speaker 2: justify this current move?
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  Speaker 4: So Leiselden, the EPA administrator, said that the Obama administration
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  Speaker 4: in two thousand and nine, when it issued the endangerment finding,
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  Speaker 4: used more dire predictions of how much the planet would
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  Speaker 4: warm than it actually would, and in some ways that
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  Speaker 4: is true. In two thousand and nine, the Obama administration
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  Speaker 4: cited some extreme projections of warming that are no longer
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  Speaker 4: as likely to happen because the world has taken some
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  Speaker 4: climate action, some efforts to reduce emissions and improve the
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  Speaker 4: deployment of renewable energy. That being said, the science was
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  Speaker 4: unequivocal in two thousand and nine that greenhouse gases were
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  Speaker 4: causing climate change and that was unleashing more frequent and
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  Speaker 4: severe heat waves, floods, other extreme weather events, and in
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  Speaker 4: the past sixteen years the science has only grown more unequivocal,
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  Speaker 4: not less.
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  Speaker 2: The Zilden also said that this was about saving money.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, we know that the White House is concerned
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  Speaker 2: that voters are concerned about energy prices right now, but
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  Speaker 2: he and the President both said that this would really
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  Speaker 2: make prices for things cheaper, specifically like cars getting three
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  Speaker 2: thousand dollars cheaper. Does your reporting show that there's evidence
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  Speaker 2: for that. Have these regulations cost Americans and will getting
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  Speaker 2: rid of them make things cheaper?
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  Speaker 4: Great question. Affordability is obviously a big concern for voters
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  Speaker 4: and a big topic for both political parties. Right now,
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  Speaker 4: And we saw Caroline Levitt, the White House Press Secretary,
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  Speaker 4: and the briefing this week also claim that this action
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  Speaker 4: would save about twenty four hundred dollars off the cost
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  Speaker 4: of a new car for the average consumer, and we
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  Speaker 4: zeld In and President Trump both repeated that figure today.
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  Speaker 4: The experts that I talked to, though, I had them
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  Speaker 4: go back and review the EPA's proposed rule and the
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  Speaker 4: math and the calculations that the agency did in that proposal,
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  Speaker 4: and they said that the agency relied on some false
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  Speaker 4: and misleading assumptions to reach that twenty four hundred dollars figure.
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  Speaker 4: So one thing that they assumed was that gas prices
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  Speaker 4: would be lower in the future, but they didn't explain
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  Speaker 4: why they thought that, And they also didn't account for
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  Speaker 4: really rapidly declining costs of batteries used in electric vehicles.
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  Speaker 4: And those are just two examples. The experts I talked
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  Speaker 4: to went on and on, and they also said that
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  Speaker 4: it's not just about the total cost of ownership of
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  Speaker 4: a new vehicle. It's also about the fuel cost, and
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  Speaker 4: more efficient vehicles save you money on gas because you're
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  Speaker 4: filling up less often.
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  Speaker 2: Right over the long run, this move comes as the
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  Speaker 2: evidence of a warming planet just grows. Twenty twenty five
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  Speaker 2: was I think the third hottest year on record, surpassed
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  Speaker 2: only by twenty twenty four and twenty twenty three. What
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  Speaker 2: do environmental advocates say will be the likely result of
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  Speaker 2: this move?
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  Speaker 4: They say this is going to essentially take the US
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  Speaker 4: out of the fight to combat climate change at a
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  Speaker 4: time when, as you said, the impacts are only growing
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  Speaker 4: more clear, from the wildfires in Los Angeles last year
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  Speaker 4: to the flooding in Texas that claim dozens of lives,
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  Speaker 4: Those climate disasters are going to continue and accelerate, and
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  Speaker 4: the US government will no longer be playing any role
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  Speaker 4: in attempting to contain that.
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  Speaker 2: You and your colleague Lisa Friedman had a story recently
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  Speaker 2: indicating that the Trump administration wants this to get to
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  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. Why is that.
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  Speaker 4: The Trump administration is moving very quickly with this repeal
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  Speaker 4: of the endiangerment finding. They did it in just about
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  Speaker 4: a year, which may not feel fast to you and me,
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  Speaker 4: but in the world of slow moving regulations, that's very fast.
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  Speaker 4: And they're doing that because they want to have this
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  Speaker 4: litigated in federal court and then at the Supreme Court
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  Speaker 4: while Trump is still in office. And that's important because
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  Speaker 4: then his lawyers at the Justice Department can defend this
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  Speaker 4: before the Supreme Court. If say, a future Democratic president
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  Speaker 4: were to take office when this got to the Court,
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  Speaker 4: then that Justice Department probably wouldn't defend this rule.
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  Speaker 2: I see Maxin and Joselo the New York Times.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for being here, Thanks so much
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  Speaker 4: for having me. Support journalism you trust, support PBS News.
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