SPOKANE, Wash. — The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency wants to rescind a landmark 2009 finding that enables the federal government to regulate greenhouse gasses. According to the director of the Gonzaga Climate Institute, that’s not only bad news for efforts to fight climate change but also a problem for local moves meant to mitigate its harms.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in July that he was seeking to rescind the finding that greenhouse gases cause harmful climate change as part of a broader Trump administration effort to cut regulations.
The landmark policy, known as the “endangerment finding,” justified federal action on greenhouse emissions under the Clean Air Act.
The federal government’s ability to combat climate change without a new act of congress hinges on that finding, according to Gonzaga Climate Institute Director Brian Henning.
“It took all of the science, looked at it very carefully and found climate change is happening and it’s harming people,” Henning said. “That created the legal authority to address it.”
Zeldin has focused on the economic costs of regulation in his push rescind the finding, arguing it would enhance consumer choice and end “hidden taxes on American businesses and families.”
While Americans consistently rank the economy as one of their top issues in elections, Henning said most believe that the country needs to do something to tackle climate change.
“Not only is this not in line with the science and not following the rulings of the supreme court, it’s not in line with public opinion either,” Henning said. “The public knows that things are strange.”
While Zeldin has focused on the economic costs of regulation, he has also taken aim at underlying science, accusing previous EPA officials of having “warped science to achieve their preferred ends” in a press conference in July.
His effort to scrap the endangerment finding is also based on a July report by the Department of Energy that found American regulations alone would have little impact on climate change. The report cited some scientists who later told Wired Magazine that it mischaracterized their work.
Henning argued the science is far less ambiguous than the Trump EPA and DOE have made it out to be.
“Rescinding this endangerment finding around climate pollution is like rescinding the decision that smoking causes cancer,” Henning said. “It’s well-known, established fact.”
The loss of EPA greenhouse gas regulations would likely increase America’s contribution to climate change. It would also threaten federal grants that support local community efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Henning pointed to grants his department has received to make Spokane more resilient to the .
That award was the largest Gonzaga University had ever received. One of the projects funded by it sought to install electric heat pumps and HVAC systems in 300 homes.
Henning warned that losing these grants could undermine make it harder to respond to another heatwave like the one that hit the .
“Just imagine if we had a heatwave… and smoke and the grid goes down,” Henning said. “We need places that could function off-grid that could have clean air and cool spaces for our community. Rescinding this endangerment is going to make it harder to find the resources to address this problem.”
Henning said efforts to mitigate impacts will continue at the local and state level, but mitigation won’t be able to keep up with the problem if emissions don’t start to come down.
“We need to take the first principle of being in a deep, dark hole. We need to stop digging,” Henning said. “We need to transition away from those fossil fuels.”
While the Trump administration points to the costs of policies aimed at combatting climate change by promoting renewables, Henning argued that fossil fuels aren’t necessarily cheaper than alternatives.
Both fossil fuel production and renewables are subsidized in the United States, but Henning argued the latter should ultimately win out as the preferred source of energy production when accounting for costs.
“I don’t know if it makes sense to sort of double down on the horse and buggy when the Model T comes out,” Henning said. “If the government allows the market to do its thing we would have a lot more renewables on the market.”
