Environmental groups file lawsuit challenging Trump rollback of climate rule

Environmental and public health groups sued the Trump administration to block its repeal of a cornerstone climate finding that has underpinned federal regulation of greenhouse gases for more than a decade, filing their challenge in a federal appeals court in Washington.

The petition argues the administration acted illegally in scrapping the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” a scientific determination that six greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare by driving climate change. The move effectively eliminated greenhouse gas standards for automobiles and cast a wide range of other climate protections into doubt, according to the filing.

The endangerment finding grew out of Massachusetts v. EPA, a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held greenhouse gases qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act and directed the EPA to determine whether they pose a danger to public health and welfare. The agency concluded in 2009 that they do, based on what it described as overwhelming scientific consensus, and the determination became the legal foundation for regulating emissions from cars, power plants and other major sources.

“We’re suing to stop Trump from torching our kids’ future in favor of a monster handout to oil companies,” said David Pettit, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement announcing the suit. “Nobody but Big Oil profits from Trump trashing climate science and making cars and trucks guzzle and pollute more. Consumers will pay more to fill up, and our skies and oceans will fill up with more pollution. The EPA’s rollbacks are based on political poppycock, not science or law, and the courts should see it that way.”

The administration framed the repeal as a cost-saving measure. Officials said unwinding the finding would deliver more than $1 trillion in regulatory savings and reduce the sticker price of new cars by thousands of dollars, claims the petitioning groups dispute as short-sighted and unsupported by the record.

In defending the rollback, the president has dismissed concerns that weakening climate rules could cost lives by worsening heat, storms and pollution, and he has reiterated his view that human-caused global warming is a hoax. Environmental organizations and many Democratic lawmakers condemned the repeal when it was announced and signaled that swift legal action would follow.

The case filed in Washington contends the EPA cannot abandon a settled scientific determination without rigorous evidence and a lawful process, and that doing so violates the Clean Air Act and the Administrative Procedure Act’s bar on arbitrary and capricious decision-making. Because the 2009 finding served as the backbone for multiple regulations, the petitioners argue, its removal jeopardizes decades of climate policy and undermines the United States’ ability to curb emissions from the transportation sector, the nation’s largest source of planet-warming pollution.

While the lawsuit centers on administrative law, the stakes are broader: a ruling will help determine whether federal climate policy remains tethered to long-standing scientific assessments or whether those can be reversed wholesale by executive action. If the courts reinstate the endangerment finding, the EPA would be obligated once again to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. If the repeal stands, many existing and future rules that rely on the finding could be weakened or struck down, reshaping the regulatory landscape for automakers, oil companies and consumers.

The administration’s legal response has not yet been filed. No hearing date has been set. For now, the challenge marks the opening round of what is likely to be a consequential fight over the role of science in federal climate policy — and over who bears the costs of pollution and the warming it drives.

By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.