Senators sound alarm over political motivations to undermine climate science and harm public health
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley said today they have joined Senate colleagues in launching an investigation into Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)Administrator Lee Zeldin’s decision to repeal the bedrock scientific determination underpinning the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
The endangerment finding, which was finalized in 2009, was repealed as a part of the Trump administration’s rollback of pollution standards for vehicles. The repeal is happening at the same time that the EPA has decided it will no longer account for health costs in clean air rulemaking and will only consider costs to industry.
“You have described the endangerment finding as the ‘holy grail of climate change religion,’ and stated that under your leadership, EPA would be ‘driving a dagger through the heart’ of climate regulation,” the senators wrote in their letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. “In media appearances and official communications, you framed repeal as ‘the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States,’ emphasizing cost savings and ideological opposition rather than engagement with the statutory endangerment standard—or with the massive costs to human health and welfare that greenhouse gas-driven climate change imposes.”
In 2009, following the Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, the EPA determined that greenhouse gases harm public health and welfare. This determination, known as the endangerment finding, provided the legal basis for U.S. climate policy. It is grounded in extensive peer-reviewed science and confirmed by successive National Climate Assessments and reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Trump’s repeal ignores more than half a century of science and constitutes a formal denial by EPA that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare—a position that defies decades of scientific evidence, agency precedent, Supreme Court rulings, and, perhaps most importantly, the lived experiences of millions of Americans.
Not only do the administration’s public comments make clear that it regarded repeal of the endangerment finding as a predetermined objective, but internal documents also reveal that EPA was moving to finalize the rescission before completing its required regulatory review. Before the nearly 600,000 public comments were reviewed, Trump’s EPA was already informing agency staff of its plans for repeal. According to public reporting, “internal agency notes and presentation slides show that you ‘intend[ed] to sign off . . . on the final policy and legal justifications for repealing the so-called endangerment finding and . . . climate rules for cars and trucks…’”
To justify the proposed repeal, Zeldin initially signaled he would rely in part on a Department of Energy (DOE) report written by an illegally formed federal working group of known climate deniers with close ties to fossil fuel and polluting industry actors. The report is filled with clear errors, cherry-picked data, and misrepresented facts that peddle the lie that human-caused climate change is not a threat.
“A federal judge … ruled that the DOE violated federal law when Secretary Wright hand-picked the five researchers and convened the Working Group in secret, finding that its formation and operation breached the Federal Advisory Committee Act’s requirements for transparency, public meetings, and balanced viewpoints… The collapse of the Working Group effort simply underscores that EPA attempted, and failed, to manufacture support for a conclusion the established scientific record does not and cannot sustain,” the senators wrote.
“When an agency signals that the outcome of a proceeding is preordained, public participation becomes performative rather than meaningful, undermining the legitimacy of the rulemaking process and violating basic principles of administrative law. The Administrative Procedure Act prohibits agencies from engaging in rulemaking when decisionmakers have an ‘unalterably closed mind.’ … Presidential policy preferences do not give EPA carte blanche to bypass statutory mandates to engage in good faith with sound science and public input in favor of predetermined outcomes,” the senators concluded.
The letter was led by U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. In addition to Wyden and Merkley, the letter was cosigned by Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and U.S. Senators Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Chris Coons, D-Del., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Tim Kaine, D-Va., Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Andy Kim, D-N.J., Angus King, I-Maine, Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., Ed Markey, D-Mass., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Patty Murray, D-Wash., Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Jack Reed, D-R.I., Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Tina Smith, D-Minn., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Mark Warner, D-Va., Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Peter Welch, D-Vt.
The full letter is here.
A web version of this release is here.
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