EPA to reverse landmark scientific finding on climate change

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: It's called the endangerment finding. It's a landmark scientific determination that planet warming pollution from fossil fuels endangers human health. And since 2009, it's formed the bedrock for the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. But that's set to all change after the Trump administration announced plans to reverse that ruling, effectively gutting the federal government's ability to combat climate change. Joining me now is EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who has been traveling the country in part to promote this move. Mr. Administrator, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate your time. I do want to start with the fundamental question that's at the heart of all this. I mean, do you accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that these greenhouse gas emissions are the biggest drivers of man-made climate change? [00:00:55] Speaker 2: First, it's worth pointing out that all eight or so images that you just posted on the screen have nothing to do with this week's announcement. What the 2009 endangerment finding had to do with was with regards to mobile sources, vehicles. This week's proposal to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding was with regards to mobile sources, vehicles. CNN's been using a lot of photos where they show smokestacks of stationary sources like power plants. That's not what we proposed. Now, going back to 2009, the science that they were reviewing included both optimistic to pessimistic scenarios. To reach the 2009 endangerment finding, they relied on the most pessimistic views of the science. The great news is that a lot of the pessimistic views of the science in 2009 that was being assumed ended up not panning out. Hey, that's great. We can rely on 2025 facts as opposed to 20 2009 bad assumptions. The other thing, too, is that at EPA, we don't just get to creatively make the law whatever we want it to be. The Supreme Court ruled in Loper Bright overturning the Chevron doctrine, West Virginia versus EPA, Michigan versus EPA, that agencies like the EPA can't just use vague language in statute and try to make it be whatever we want it to be. The major policy doctrine also says that when you're going to reach something like an endangerment finding and then have trillions of dollars of regulation, that's something that should be decided by our elected members of Congress in passing statute. And if you don't mind, the 2009 endangerment finding, while it's simply summed up now as saying carbon dioxide endangers public health and welfare, that's not what they did back in 2009. They had a lot of mental leaps. They say carbon dioxide, when mixed with a whole bunch of other well-mixed gases, in some cases not even emitted from mobile sources, they say that that contributes to global climate change. It doesn't say causes, contributes. How much, they don't say, but it's north of zero, not much more than zero. [00:03:07] Speaker 1: So you're sounding pretty skeptical then of this overall scientific consensus that these greenhouse gas emissions are the overwhelming man-made climate change driver. [00:03:18] Speaker 2: That might be your way to try to twist my words, but what I'm saying is that we get our power at EPA from what the law states, and the Supreme Court in recent cases have been very clear. So what I was just describing with all the mental leaps used in the 2009 endangerment finding, Section 202 of the Clean Air Act doesn't allow all of these different mental leaps, as the Supreme Court made clear in recent years. So I'm not going to get creative with the law, we're going to read the plain language, and if Section 202 of the Clean Air Act gets amended by Congress, then we'll follow that new law. [00:03:53] Speaker 1: So, sir, first of all, I don't want to put words in your mouth or twist your words or anything like that. I just was trying to clarify kind of where you were coming down on my initial question, and I will say that you, as the Trump-appointed EPA administrator, you sound a lot different from the member of Congress, and I, of course, covered you when you were in Congress, but back in 2016, here's what you had to say about climate change broadly. Let's watch. [00:04:19] Speaker 3: Our climate is changing. We need to do more to be better stewards of the air, the land, our water. The key is to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, to become more environmentally friendly and pursue alternative energy, clean and green energy. [00:04:35] Speaker 1: What's changed for you? [00:04:37] Speaker 2: Nothing. The climate has always been changing. We should not be relying on all of these foreign sources of energy. We should be unleashing energy dominance here in this country. We do it better for our environment than so many other countries do for theirs and for the rest of the world. It's better for our economy, our national security, and our environment. And I'll tell you, over the course of my first six months on this job, the announcement that I enjoyed putting out the most was on the 100th day of President Trump's term in office, we released 100 environmental accomplishments that we did in those first 100 days. We're very proud of our historic wildfire cleanup in Los Angeles. We increased water quality standards in southeast Pennsylvania and into Delaware along a Delaware River basin. Just last week, I was in Mexico City announcing an international agreement with Mexico to advance a permanent 100% solution to resolve the Tijuana River raw sewage crisis that's been plaguing millions of Southern California residents for decades. And that is a pace that motivates us to keep up. We are very proud of all of the accomplishments. As you pointed out, I'm currently traveling around New England, visiting Superfund sites that are getting cleaned up. And EPA, over the course of years and decades, has been doing an amazing job as it relates to the Superfund cleanup and the Brownfield cleanup. We're advancing cooperative federalism and getting state implementation plans done. We're getting through our backlog. We inherited a pesticide review, a new chemical review. There are amazing, dedicated employees at this agency all across this entire country doing important work. And we're very proud of that work. And we're going to continue to keep that pace up. [00:06:27] Speaker 1: So one way that you have defended the change you want to make in terms of the endangerment finding and saying that the government's not going to regulate carbon dioxide fundamentally is to say that this is going to help consumers save money, basically pay less for their cars. My question to you, though, is what do you say to people who live in a state like Florida? Farmers' insurance is pulled out of Florida entirely. State Farm basically threatened to. It's getting harder and harder for people to get insurance at all, let alone pay for people that have insurance. It's so much more expensive. How is this policy, this change that you're making, going to help those people? [00:07:13] Speaker 2: Well, a few things. First off, as you look at the 2009 endangerment finding, and I referenced that it was to combat global climate change, that was their justification. What EPA had done previously under Section 202 was to look at local and regional impacts. The problem for EPA in 2009 was that they didn't have the science to be able to reach that justification. That's why they had to expand it to this new approach of combating global climate change. We have a first – and I would also point out that what we put out this week is a proposal. We're now going out to public comment. We'll make a final decision after that public comment. Now, as far as the National Flood Insurance Program and congressional debates and votes, that's something for members of Congress to talk about how to fund insurance programs. As it relates to carbon dioxide, I think it's important for people to note that there has been a greening of the planet that's been taking place. It's important to note that emissions have been down. And part of your question was also with regards to the amount of money that's being saved. We at the Trump administration promote consumer choice. We don't believe that states and the federal government should be advancing any form of an electric vehicle mandate. This proposal, on top of a proposal to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding, is a proposal to rescind the greenhouse gas emissions on vehicles that followed light, medium, and heavy duty. And the off-cycle credits, like the incentives for the hated start-stop feature and other aspects that we've heard from Americans from across this country. So there's a lot that goes into it. We're going through a public comment period. We want to make the right decision afterwards. But for people who want to sum up the 2009 endangerment finding, as if they studied carbon dioxide as an endangerment on human health. [00:09:11] Speaker 1: I want to bring us back here, though, to the present day, because a lot's changed since 2009. Do you think the federal government should have a role in trying to combat climate change? [00:09:24] Speaker 2: It's a great question. And I'm at the EPA and running an agency. The Supreme Court made it very clear that I have to follow the law. I have to follow the plain language of the law, and I can't get creative. I don't get to just make up the law just because a predecessor decided to fill in vague language in the law to do many mental leaps to try to justify an electric vehicle mandate and trillions of dollars of regulation to strangulate out of existence entire sectors of our energy economy. You were posting earlier a whole bunch of photos of stationary sources. Well, the Biden administration did do a whole bunch of regulations to try to make, for example, the coal industry get regulated out of existence. There are people out there who like wind. I come from a state where the governor says that New York is a substitute for baseload power. It's not. In order to make America the AI capital of the world, in order to unleash energy dominance, to protect the jobs, to bring down energy costs, we are not going to regulate out of existence entire sectors of our economy, and we are not going to interpret law in whichever vague, creative way allows us to give ourselves maximum power. The power comes from the law and from Congress, not from our own creativity. [00:10:44] Speaker 1: All right. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, I'm grateful to have you on the show today, sir. Thanks very much for spending some time with us. [00:10:49] Speaker 2: Thank you.