EPA to Challenge CO2 Endangerment Finding: CO2 is NOT a Pollutant

Known as the Endangerment Finding,

the regulation treats carbon dioxide and certain other gases as pollutants that threaten to overheat the planet with their “greenhouse” effect.

However, media outlets reported February 26 that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin had recommended against the rule in a communication to the White House. Although it remains to be seen exactly what Mr. Zeldin has recommended and what process would lead to a repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding, we are clear that the time is past for it to be scrapped.

Abandoning the rule would necessarily reverse policies that have contributed to the closure of coal mines and power plants fired by fossil fuels, the loss of thousands of jobs in the energy and manufacturing sectors, higher electricity and fuel prices and an increased risk of power blackouts. In the last decade, regulations have contributed to the closing of more than 40 percent of the nation’s coal-fired power plants – one of the most economical and reliable generators of electricity.

All this destruction is the result of rulemaking that put ideology ahead of science.

Nationally, the Clean Power Plan, the Affordable Clean Energy Rule and stringent vehicle emissions standards all stem from the endangerment finding.

States point to the regulation to justify their own climate initiatives. California, for instance, has used it to defend its waiver for stricter vehicle emissions standards, while Northeastern states have relied on it to uphold the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program.

Of all the rule’s absurdities none is greater than the claim that CO₂ is a pollutant catastrophically overheating the planet. More than a century of accepted science has established that the warming potential of each molecule of CO₂ decreases as its atmospheric concentration rises. This phenomenon of diminishing returns means that even doubling the amount of CO₂ from current levels would have only a modest effect on temperature.

EPA also has failed to account for the benefits of CO₂. Higher levels of the gas increase plant growth and agricultural productivity through CO₂’s fertilization effect – a factor in the greening of Earth over the last several decades, as affirmed by NASA.

Statement of Gregory Wrightstone

Executive Director, CO2 Coalition

Re: report of EPA recommending against Endangerment Finding

EPA’s endangerment finding must be repealed. It is the basis of wrongheaded climate regulation that puts ideology ahead of science. The regulation has been an impediment to economic growth, a cause of rising energy costs and a destroyer of thousands of jobs at power plants, coal mines and manufacturing facilities.

Relying on false computer models and pseudoscience, the EPA erroneously claims that carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases threaten to overheat Earth. The agency disregards complexities of climate dynamics – from solar cycles to clouds to ocean currents – and a mountain of real-world data accumulated over decades and centuries that disprove the endangerment finding.

Repealing the rule would defang fearmongering climate alarmists and the lawfare emanating from the U.N. and allow a return of common sense and scientific integrity befitting a free society.

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