Beyond ‘Endangerment’: Finding a Way Forward for U.S. on Climate
On February 12, the Environmental Protection Agency rescinded its “endangerment finding” for greenhouse gases, claiming it lacks authority to regulate global pollution under the Clean Air Act.
If this repeal survives legal challenge, U.S. climate progress — already upended by the Trump administration — would stall further. As part of this action, the EPA revoked all greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks, even as transportation remains the nation’s largest source of emissions.
The Clean Air Act has been the federal government’s most important climate tool since 2009, when the EPA issued its finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and began regulating them. Rules stemming from that finding have spurred cleaner vehicle production, accelerated renewable energy adoption, and reduced methane emissions in the oil and gas industry.
The Clean Air Act isn’t a comprehensive climate law, however. It authorizes the EPA to set sector-by-sector greenhouse gas limits based on cost and available technology. But it doesn’t establish an economy-wide cap-and-trade program, as legislation proposed during the Obama era would have, or subsidize low carbon energy, as legislation signed by President Biden did. Nor can the Clean Air Act directly tax pollution, which many economists consider the most effective way to price carbon.
Read Jody Freeman’s full opinion piece at Yale Environment 360.