The Trump administration’s decision to roll back the “endangerment finding” for greenhouse gas emissions may have had an unintended consequence: It undercut the administration’s legal argument against blue state climate regulations, environmental lawyers say.
In February, the Environmental Protection Agency moved to rescind an Obama-era finding that greenhouse gas emissions threaten public health and cause climate change, essentially unravelling the legal basis for federal emissions regulations. The move was cheered by anti-environmentalist conservatives and industry leaders alike as the end of burdensome regulation.
But the endangerment finding played a central role in the Trump administration’s legal arguments against state-level climate policy, according to environmental lawyers.