The Environmental Protection Agency wants to undo its finding that climate change harms people, and eliminate greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin officially announced the proposal on Tuesday at a commercial truck dealership in Indianapolis.
The 2009 climate “endangerment finding” serves as the scientific and legal basis for many of EPA’s rules that limit greenhouse gas emissions from things like cars and coal plants. Zeldin said reversing the finding would be the largest deregulatory action in the country’s history.
He said greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks have gone down in recent decades and Americans shouldn’t be forced to buy expensive electric vehicles.
“There are other nations that continue to increase emissions and all of us strangulating our own economy, regulating the heck out of American families and American industries," Zeldin said.
The Indiana Motor Trucking Association said electric trucks are more expensive, can’t transport as much cargo and don’t have an established charging network.
The Federal Highway Administration is currently reviewing a Biden administration program to place EV chargers along interstates. President Donald Trump "Big Beautiful Bill" also ended tax credits for people buying passenger cars.
When asked whether reversing the finding and eliminating clean car standards would discourage companies who have planned EV battery manufacturing plants in Indiana, Gov. Mike Braun said businesses should come to the state based on "sound decisions" not "bad government policy."
"I think it's a great example of where government got ahead of common sense and even the marketplace. I remember vividly, probably about three years ago when 5,400 light duty truck dealers said — and car dealers — quit sending us EVs. We can't sell them," he said.
Former EPA officials and climate advocates have called the plan to reverse the finding "dangerous" and a "misunderstanding of science."
Howard Learner is the CEO of the Environmental Law and Policy Center.
“Any withdrawal of the clean car and clean truck standards would have to be based on a scientific finding that pollution from cars and trucks no longer endangers the public health, which it most certainly does," he said.
The Environmental Protection Network said clean car standards were expected to prevent more than 82,000 premature deaths by 2055.
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Learner said it’s easy to see that climate change is accelerating — from the floods in Texas, to the wildfires in California and Canada, to more extreme heat here in the Midwest. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows heat-related deaths in the U.S. have increased by 117 percent in the past 25 years.
A United Nations report last year found that countries around the globe have done little to curtail greenhouse gas emissions since signing on to the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. To avoid the worst effects of climate change, the UN said emissions need to be cut by more than 40 percent in the next five years.
The public will have 45 days to comment on the proposal to get rid of the climate endangerment finding.
Rebecca is our energy and environment reporter. Contact her at rthiele@iu.edu or follow her on Twitter at @beckythiele.