The EPA has warned hundreds of employees who work on climate change that they could be terminated at any time] Repealing the finding would undercut the agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, according to Ben Cahill, the director for Energy Markets and Policy at the Center for Energy and Environmental Systems Analysis at the University of Texas at Austin.
“President Trump’s day one Executive Order, ‘Unleashing American Energy,’ gave the EPA Administrator a 30-day deadline to submit joint recommendations to the Director of [Office of Emergency Management], in collaboration with the heads of any other relevant agencies, on the legality and continuing applicability of the 2009 Endangerment Finding,” a spokesperson for the agency told The Independent in an emailed statement on Wednesday.
Environmental Defense Fund General Counsel Vickie Patton said Wednesday that any action would “trample science, be contrary to law, and worsen the harms that are already being felt by Americans in communities across the country.”.
Trump has pledged multiple times to “drill, baby, drill,” even as carbon dioxide and other gases have continued to turn up Earth’s thermostat.
The science linking greenhouse gases emitted from all of the sources EPA is currently regulating is overwhelming,” she said.
