On Thursday, US President Donald Trump will repeal a law dating back to the time of President Barack Obama, which served as the basis for the fight against greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said today.
The US president will “formalize the repeal” of the 2009 law known as the “Endangerment finding” law, she told reporters, adding that repealing the law will allow Americans to save money.
Strongly condemned by scientists and environmentalists, such a reversal will deal a major blow to the climate action of the United States, the world’s largest historical contributor to global warming emissions.
Passed under the presidency of former Democratic President Barack Obama, the law stipulates that six greenhouse gases are dangerous to public health and therefore fall within the scope of pollutants regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Its passage paved the way for a number of federal regulations aimed at limiting emissions of these atmosphere-warming gases (CO2, methane and others), starting with trucks and cars, which emit carbon dioxide when burning gasoline.
Its repeal would therefore end emissions limits imposed on vehicles and allow the Trump administration to roll back a number of other regulations, particularly those related to power plants, US media reported.
The Trump administration, a strong supporter of oil and coal, has sought for several months to overturn this decision and the regulations that flow from it, much to the dismay of many scientists who condemn the decision as contrary to science and the public interest.
“The scientific evidence for human-induced climate change and its consequences was unequivocal in 2009, and since then it has become even more alarming and compelling,” more than 1,000 scientists and experts said in a public letter in July.
The US government, for its part, downplays the role of human activity in climate change and claims that greenhouse gases should not be treated as pollutants in the traditional sense because their effects on human health are indirect and global, not local.
He also believes that such a repeal would help reduce the cost of new cars, after years of price increases since the coronavirus pandemic.
