How will repealing the ‘endangerment finding’ hit US action on climate?

The decision last week by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to revoke a 16-year-old ruling that has underpinned action on vehicle exhaust and fossil infrastructure emissions has left US climate action on greenhouse gas emissions in turmoil. How big an impact is this single decision likely to have on regulating climate-warming gases?

The 2009 ‘endangerment finding’ by the EPA recognised that rising levels of greenhouse gases threatened the lives of the public in the US. It has formed the basis of the agency’s authority to regulate climate-warming gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. The move will have widespread consequences for driving innovation at home and abroad and for investors, although it has already provoked a swathe of legal challenges. ‘Let’s be clear, it’s not a decision based on science,’ says Ray Minjares, who leads on the deployment of zero-emission trucks and buses for the International Council on Clean Transportation.