Trump prepares to repeal Obama's climate goals legislation. “It will be the biggest act of deregulation in US history”
A MAGA cap on Donald Trump's desk. PHOTO: ALEX WONG / Getty images / Profimedia
The administration of American President Donald Trump is preparing to repeal this week a law that dates back to the time of Democratic President Barack Obama and which serves as the foundation for the fight against greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, AFP and Agerpres inform.
This will be “the largest act of deregulation in US history,” the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, who is behind these efforts, told the Wall Street Journal.
In July, his agency announced its intention to repeal the law's so-called “endangerment finding,” a repeal that would deal a major blow to climate action in the United States, the world's largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
Questioned by AFP, the federal agency on Tuesday accused former President Barack Obama's administration of “making one of the most damaging decisions in modern history.”
Adopted by the same Environmental Protection Agency in 2009, this text stipulates that six greenhouse gases are dangerous to public health and therefore fall under the scope of pollutants regulated by the federal agency.
This decision legally paved the way for numerous federal regulations aimed at limiting emissions of these greenhouse gases (CO2, methane), starting with trucks and cars, which emit CO2 when they burn gasoline.
The Trump administration, a staunch supporter of oil and coal, is trying to overturn that decision and the regulations that flow from it, downplaying the role of human activity in climate change and arguing that greenhouse gases should not be treated as pollutants in the traditional sense because their effects on human health are indirect and global, rather than local.
If it is confirmed, the reversal of this decision will undoubtedly be contested in court and could even reach the Supreme Court. “We will see each other in court,” recently declared Manish Bapna, president of the environmental organization NRDC.
