Last week, the US Environmental Protection Agency proposed a plan to delete its scientific finding recognizing that greenhouse gases are harmful to human health. That plan is now up for public comment.
At issue is the EPA’s “Endangerment Finding,” which is the scientific basis of EPA’s regulation of harmful greenhouse gases. The endangerment finding found that greenhouse gases are harmful to human health, recognizing a scientific fact that every serious person has known for a long time – but now it was at least codified into federal procedure.
It focused specifically on carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), sulfur hexaflouride (SF6), hydroflourocarbons (HFCs), nitrous oxide (N2O), and perfluourocarbons (PFCs, now more commonly known as PFAS or “forever chemicals”), all of which cause climate change and harm humans, and we know this to be the case.
Last week, Lee Zeldin, placed into the position of chief saboteur of the EPA by a convicted felon who sought a billion-dollar bribe from the oil industry while running for an office he is Constitutionally barred from holding, announced that he would repeal this finding, flying in the face of science and public health.
Zeldin’s stated purpose for attempting to delete this finding is because if the finding is gone, it will allow him to roll back other life- and money-saving vehicle efficiency regulations. He wants to revert those regulations because they constrain the fossil fuel industry – which has given him hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes over his political career.
The specific regulations that Zeldin has his eyes on are automotive regulations put in place by the EPA under President Biden. According to the government’s own numbers, these regulations stand to save 2,000 lives per year and save Americans over $100 billion dollars per year in fuel and health costs.
In announcing the plan to kill Americans and cost all of us more money, Zeldin was joined by Chris Wright, a former oil CEO who is currently the titular head of the Department of Energy. In April, Wright signed off on a DoE report which said the rollbacks sought by Zeldin would raise gas prices by 76 cents per gallon, showing that the people behind this plan know it will increase your costs and yet are going through with it anyway.
The reason gas prices would rise is because of higher demand. If vehicles are less efficient, not only will they burn more gasoline thus costing you more money and also causing more pollution and higher health costs for everyone, but that gasoline will be more expensive because that’s what happens to prices of products when demand rises.
Wright’s office also offered a new report last week that claims climate change isn’t all that bad, but in doing so it misinterprets data, which the author of one of the cited studies already pointed out that the DoE misinterpreted. So, even the stretched justifications offered for the plan are steeped in the ignorance we have come accustomed to since late January.
So far, this clearly harmful plan has only been proposed, and now it’s open for public comment on regulations.gov, where interested members of the public can leave substantive comments on whether they support the planned regulatory change or not.
The proposal will also receive a virtual public hearing on August 19 and 20, with a potential additional session on August 21 if enough people sign up to testify. More information on that hearing and how to register can be found here, with pre-registration required by August 12 for anyone who wants a 3-minute window to speak on this.
The online public comment period, though, runs from now through September 15. Those public comments can be submitted here. In case you get lost, the docket code is EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194. And hopefully the website doesn’t break again like it did this weekend, conveniently right after putting up a plan to kill people and cost them money.
If Zeldin pushes forward with his idea despite the inevitable public opposition to a plan to raise Americans’ costs and make their lives more deadly, the move will likely be caught up in courts for years, wasting Americans’ time and money and jeopardizing American competitiveness as the world rapidly moves towards improving vehicle efficiency without us.
Even if this clearly unwise and probably illegal move loses in court eventually, we still will have lost time in the transition – giving Zeldin’s oil masters some extra runway to sell their poison to us, and ensuring America’s competitors get a leg up in the transition to cleaner technologies while Americans remain forever poorer and sicker as a result of the republican party’s actions.
Public comments on this ridiculous plan are open through September 15. Public comments can be submitted here. In case you get lost, the docket code is EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194. EPA has to respond to legitimate concerns during public comment period or else the rule could be voided, so the more substantive your comment, the better.
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