The EPA Wants to Roll Back Dozens of Environmental Regulations

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THE TOP FIVE

1. EPA moves to roll back dozens of environmental regulations

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin yesterday launched an attack on U.S. environmental regulations, announcing a review of dozens of agency rules aimed at safeguarding the water and air, and the health of all Americans. In what he called the “biggest deregulation action in U.S. history,” Zeldin said he was “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion” in the name of unleashing American energy and bringing down costs. As The New York Times noted, Zeldin’s announcement did not once refer to protecting the environment or public health, “twin tenets that have guided the agency since its founding in 1970.”

Among the many rules and regulations up for reconsideration are:

• Emissions limits on power plants
• Tailpipe pollution standards for cars and trucks
• Mandatory greenhouse gas reporting for large oil and gas operations
• Methane regulations for oil and a gas operations
• Limits on mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plants
• Air quality standards that limit harmful particle and soot pollution
• Wastewater pollution rules for power plants
• A program to limit haze
• The “Good Neighbor Rule,” which protects Americans from air pollution from other states

Environmental advocates swiftly and forcefully condemned the announcement. Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy called it “the most disastrous day in EPA history.”

Amanda Leland, executive director of Environmental Defense Fund, said “those seeking to make America healthier should be deeply concerned.”

Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, said “the EPA has officially abandoned its mission to protect health and the environment.”

“The scale and scope and speed with which this administration is attacking environmental safeguards is unprecedented,” Jason Rylander, the legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute told NBC News.

2. EPA to review endangerment finding on greenhouse gases

One of the EPA’s most concerning announcements is its plan to reconsider the agency’s 2009 science-backed conclusion that six planet-warming gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, are a danger to public health. This finding is the basis for federal climate regulations, and gutting it would significantly curb the EPA’s ability to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Any attempt by the EPA to undo the endangerment finding will no doubt be met by legal challenges, and the agency would face an uphill battle to demonstrate that greenhouse gases are not a public health threat. “You’ve got to explain away decades of statements by every administration that there are negative consequences of climate change that can be reasonably anticipated,” Jonathan H. Adler, a conservative legal expert and professor of environmental law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, told the Times.

3. Judge scoffs at EPA’s lack of evidence for canceling climate grants

There are a few updates on the Trump administration’s escalating battle against nonprofits that were granted some $20 billion under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Documents show that Citibank, where the money was parked, was told to freeze the funds by the FBI, and the FBI is investigating the nonprofits for possible criminal charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Earlier this week, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced he had terminated the funds, which had been approved by Congress. Several of the grantees have launched lawsuits against the EPA and Citibank.

Yesterday a judge in one of the cases gave the administration until Monday to present evidence of fraud, waste, or abuse that justifies terminating the grant contracts. “You can’t even tell me what the evidence of malfeasance is,” U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan told a lawyer for the Trump administration during a hearing. “You have to have some kind of evidence.”

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4. DOT reportedly orders pause on green infrastructure projects

The Department of Transportation has reportedly told its officials to pause green infrastructure projects funded by Biden-era grants while the agency scrutinizes them to determine whether they “advance climate, equity, and other priorities counter to the administration's executive orders.” The review will identify for cancellation any projects aimed at “equity analysis, green infrastructure, bicycle infrastructure [and] EV and/or EV-charging infrastructure.”

5. Breakthrough Energy is closing its policy and advocacy arm

In case you missed it: Breakthrough Energy, the climate philanthropy organization founded by Bill Gates, is closing its policy and advocacy office and has laid off much of its staff in Washington, D.C., Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer reported yesterday. The layoffs will effectively gut an organization central to the effort to enact the package of clean energy tax cuts passed during the Biden administration. They will also silence one of the few environmental nonprofits that supported nuclear energy, direct air capture, and other new zero-carbon energy innovations. More than three dozen employees across the United States and Europe are affected by the layoffs, including the office’s senior leadership. “A major chapter in climate giving has ended,” Meyer said.

THE KICKER

A new four-lane highway is being carved through Brazil’s Amazon rainforest to make way for an influx of traffic from the COP30 climate summit in Belém later this year.