{"id":486845,"date":"2026-02-24T03:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T03:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/486845\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T03:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T03:18:16","slug":"epa-rolls-back-climate-rule-raising-risks-in-louisiana-business-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/486845\/","title":{"rendered":"EPA rolls back climate rule, raising risks in Louisiana | Business News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration has rolled back a scientific finding that serves as the backbone for federal climate change policy, a move that could leave Louisiana\u2019s industrial players in a state of regulatory uncertainty while exposing the state to more extreme weather, rising seas and hotter temperatures.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Environmental Protection Agency on Feb. 12 rolled back the \u201cendangerment finding,\u201d<\/a> which allowed planet-heating greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide to be regulated like other pollutants under the Clean Air Act. That finding has served as the foundation of federal regulations aimed at limiting the long-term impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n

In practical terms, standards for tailpipe emissions and other climate rules aimed at power plants and major industrial sources could be stalled, rewritten or struck down in court. That could leave companies and regulators operating in a gray area for months or years as lawsuits play out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis radical rule became the legal foundation for the Green New Scam, one of the greatest scams in history,\u201d said President Donald Trump at a press conference announcing the move.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill praised it as a step toward eliminating a slate of climate change policies, often referred to as the \u201cGreen New Deal,\u201d that some Democratic lawmakers have championed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This is the single largest act of deregulation in U.S. history and will make buying a car more affordable for Louisiana families,\u201d Murrill said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Trump administration estimated that the change will save $1.3 trillion in costs over three decades, mostly by reducing the price of new cars, though environmental groups like the Sierra Club have stressed that figure ignores the health and infrastructure costs<\/a> of allowing additional air pollution.<\/p>\n

Many of those health impacts may fall on Louisianans, some of whom already live in areas with poor air quality. The move is also likely to increase Louisiana\u2019s climate risk<\/a>, potentially increasing already high insurance costs while making hurricanes stronger and more likely to rapidly intensify.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sections of New Orleans floodwalls are sinking faster than sea levels are rising, study finds<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis increases the likelihood of another Katrina,\u201d said Joshua Basseches, a professor of public policy and environmental studies at Tulane University. \u201cThis is the single most damaging thing that this administration has done with regard to climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louisiana is on the front lines of climate change, Basseches said. It is a hurricane-prone state, and storms can be supercharged by hotter Gulf waters, which not only make the storms more powerful but also more likely to undergo rapid intensification \u2014 giving the city less time to prepare and residents less time to evacuate.<\/p>\n

\"NO.lainsurance.adv_100.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Upper Little Caillou School was razed after Hurricane Ida. Students now get on buses and travel north, to Houma, for school.<\/p>\n

Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune<\/a><\/p>\n

Land loss and chronic flooding are also likely to become more severe on a hotter planet. Rising sea levels will eat away at Louisiana\u2019s already diminished coastal marshes, giving metropolitan areas like New Orleans and Baton Rouge less buffer from storm surge. Day-to-day tidal flooding will get worse, too, particularly in places outside of levee systems, like Cocodrie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Plus, New Orleans\u2019s levee system is only built to withstand a so-called 100-year storm \u2014 one that has a 1% chance of happening during any given year. As the climate changes, those storms are set to become more likely. Congress has authorized but has not completely funded a study aimed at providing 200-year protection to New Orleans\u2019 levee system on the east bank.<\/p>\n

In the long-term, however, it\u2019s not yet certain that the Trump administration\u2019s move will stick. Already, the rescission has been challenged in federal court. Environmental and health groups, including the American Public Health Association, the Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment, and the Environmental Defense Fund, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u2018Wait and see\u2019<\/p>\n

The endangerment finding traces back to a 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that greenhouse gases qualify as \u201cair pollutants\u201d under the Clean Air Act and required the agency to decide whether those emissions endanger public health or welfare. The rollback is already headed for a legal showdown in the D.C. Circuit, and observers expect the dispute could ultimately return to the Supreme Court, which has previously recognized EPA\u2019s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n

Industry may wait to see how the Trump administration\u2019s latest move plays out before making decisions based on it. Globally, investments in renewable energy have still been breaking records despite the Trump administration’s opposition. Energy experts in Louisiana don\u2019t think that is likely to change now.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump isn\u2019t dictating what happens in world energy markets,\u201d said David Dismukes, a professor emeritus at the LSU Center for Energy Studies. \u201cWhen you create this kind of uncertainty in policy, whether you think it\u2019s \u2018good\u2019 or \u2018bad,\u2019 you start changing things \u2014 that\u2019s just not good for capital formation, regardless of what side of the political coin you\u2019re on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a pure economist, finance-guy perspective,\u201d he added, \u201cthis isn\u2019t a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Dismukes, a bigger deal than the rollback of the endangerment finding may be the Trump administration\u2019s move to undo tax incentives for renewable energy that the Biden administration put forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the here and now, that has much bigger implications,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Keith Hall, the director of LSU’s Energy Law Center, said that if the endangerment finding is rescinded, that could open the door for cities run by Democratic administrations, like New Orleans, or environmental groups to bring new lawsuits against companies for climate pollution.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these groups may feel like if nothing\u2019s going to happen at the federal regulatory level, we need to file lawsuits,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think there\u2019s going to be some wait and see, both because of the legal challenges and the fact that the next administration may take a different view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louisiana\u2019s climate plan<\/p>\n

Under former Gov. John Bel Edwards, the state convened a task force that put forward a plan aimed at guiding the state toward limiting its greenhouse gas emissions. But that plan appears to have been shelved by Gov. Jeff Landry\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n

That plan was not law, Basseches said, and had no framework for holding companies to account if they did not follow it. \u201cBut it was extremely important compared to nothing, which appears to be the direction that this state is going in now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that the state\u2019s plan was not reliant on the federal government\u2019s climate regulation. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing stopping Louisiana from reviving its climate action plan,\u201d he said, \u201cother than the lack of political will.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration has rolled back a scientific finding that serves as the backbone for federal climate change…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,40197,8803,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-486845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-fej","10":"tag-hardwall","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}