WASHINGTON — President Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin unveiled what they called the largest deregulation in US history Thursday by axing a sweeping anti-greenhouse gas policy — saying it could save Americans $1.3 trillion, or about $3,823.50 per US resident.
“Today, the Trump EPA has finalized the single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America,” Zeldin said alongside Trump in the White House Roosevelt Room.
“Referred to by some as the holy grail of federal regulatory overreach, the 2009 Obama EPA endangerment finding is now eliminated.”
President Trump speaks during an event with Environmental Protection Agency director Lee Zeldin announcing that the EPA will no longer regulate greenhouse gases. AP
The repeal ends a policy allowing the feds to regulate the emissions of fossil fuels by declaring them dangerous to public health.
The so-called “endangerment finding” allowed the EPA to regulate six greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act — providing for a regulatory framework to measure and constrain the expulsion of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.
Trump called the finding “a disastrous Obama-era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers,” predicting they would save “trillions of dollars” as a result of Thursday’s action.
The president added that his administration was “terminating all additional green emission standards imposed unnecessarily on vehicle models and engines between 2012 and 2027 and beyond.”
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Zeldin said that action could lower car costs by an average of about $2,400.
The environmental chief and Trump singled out one practical impact of Thursday’s announcement: The looming absence of the car feature that switches engines off while drivers are idling at stop lights.
“Under the endangerment finding, they forced the hated start-stop feature onto American consumers, which unnecessarily shuts off a car’s engine. When you stop at a red light, in other words, the engine goes off. That’s great,” Trump said.
Zeldin also said that “manufacturers will no longer be burdened by measuring, compiling or reporting greenhouse gas emissions for vehicles and engines.”