Maine officials say the Trump administration's plan to revoke the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gas pollution will threaten efforts to protect people from the worst effects of climate change.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Tuesday said the agency is submitting a proposal to revoke the "endangerment finding."
The 2009 determination found climate-warming pollution such as carbon dioxide and methane threaten public health and welfare and underlies American restrictions on emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other climate-warming gasses.
The EPA said in a statement that the finding is a prerequisite for regulating tailpipe pollution from new cars and trucks. And it plans to remove all greenhouse emissions standards from motor vehicles.
Stationary pollution sources, such as power plants and factories, are covered in a different regulation that the agency is also planning to roll back, the EPA added.
"With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers," Zeldin said in a press release.
Revoking the rule and ending vehicle emission standards will save Americans $54 billion every year, according to the EPA.
Environmental groups and Maine officials, however, warn that repealing the finding extends beyond motor vehicle standards and signals the country's surrender in the global effort to curb climate change.
Kate Sinding Daly, Senior Vice President for Law and Policy at the Conservation Law Foundation said rolling back the finding contradicts the scientific consensus that a warming climate is caused by burning fossil fuels.
"What they are proposing to do is basically put a stake through the heart of any federal effort to address global warming pollution," Sinding Daly said.
Maine elected officials said that repealing the finding would undercut progress toward addressing the cause of natural disasters and unpredictable weather made worse by a warming atmosphere.
"Maine is already contending with extreme weather and flooding that threatens our environment, public health, and economy," Governor Janet Mills said in a statement.
"Allowing unchecked greenhouse gas emissions will only exacerbate these challenges and leave us susceptible to dangerous pollution from other states carried here by prevailing winds," Mills added.
Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat for Maine's first congressional district, said the Trump administration was ignoring the threat to public health from dangerous heat, storms, wildfires and disease while protecting the interests of fossil fuel companies.
"By claiming that climate change poses no threat to public health, President Trump and Administrator Zeldin are making ignorance and denial the official climate policy of the U.S., while allowing the world’s biggest polluters to continue destroying our planet," Pingree said in a statement.
The proposal is required to undergo a lengthy public process including a public comment period before it can be finalized. It will almost certainly face court challenges.
