Hooray for President Donald Trump and EPA chief Lee Zeldin for moving to roll back trillions of dollars in federal mandates by undoing the Obama-era greenhouse-gas “endangerment” finding.
Back in 2009, Environmental Protection Agency functionaries listed carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as posing a public-health threat — not for any actual toxicity, but because of their role in speeding global warming.
That in turn allowed for unprecedented EPA regulation of factories, power plants and auto emissions — including the hated stop-start feature.
None of it ever made sense: Congress created the EPA in 1970 to fight actual poisons in our water and air, not to manage complex bank-shot contingencies as the “endangerment” finding envisioned.
After long teasing the repeal, Zeldin finally made the “largest deregulatory action in the history of America” official Tuesday; it’ll be a huge win for energy sanity.
After all, anti-carbon mandates do major immediate harm to public health, by making electricity and other goods far more expensive: This green madness is a major reason why Western Europe has seen next to zero economic growth over the last two decades.
And much of it makes little sense even as anti-climate-change policy: The EPA itself admits that the vehicle stop-start feature — which kills internal-combustion engines at red lights — hasn’t shown clear reductions in emissions.
Yes, cutting carbon emissions is an important long-term goal — but trying to make them zero immediately is nuts, especially when China is still building new coal plants at a record pace.
The nation (and the world!) is far better served by Trump’s drive to boost US energy production and ensure a plentiful and reliable supply of cheaper electricity to meet the growing demands of manufacturers and AI companies.
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For all progressives’ current talk of “affordability,” energy costs remain by far the single most important issue when it comes to improving public health and quality of life.
But the anti-carbon cult has a death grip on the elites who set the Democratic agenda; expect a vast wave of propaganda posing as news and invective pretending to be science in response to Zeldin’s move.
Lawsuits, as well — since Democrats snuck language declaring greenhouse gases to be “pollutants” into the utterly mislabeled “Inflation Reduction Act” three years ago.
Republicans in Congress need to put rolling back that absurdity high on their agenda when Congress reconvenes in the fall.