(The Center Square) – Climate and energy experts have praised President Donald Trump's recent elimination of former President Barack Obama's Endangerment Finding, with several noting the freedom the action will bring to the auto industry and others stating this is only a beginning step.
American Energy Institute CEO Jason Isaac told The Center Square that repealing the Endangerment Finding "for mobile sources is a necessary first step toward correcting course, restoring the Clean Air Act to its proper role, and putting reliable, affordable energy back at the center of federal policy."
Isaac told The Center Square how "President Obama once said that under his energy policies, electricity prices would 'necessarily skyrocket.'"
"For many American families and small businesses, that prediction proved accurate," Isaac said.
"The Endangerment Finding became the legal engine behind regulations that raised energy costs, distorted markets, and made affordability an afterthought," Isaac said.
TheEndangerment Findingwas signed in 2009 under Obama's EPA and declared that certain greenhouse gases threatened public health, including carbon dioxide (CO2).
President of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow Craig Rucker said in a statement to The Center Square that "at its core, the Endangerment Finding defies basic science and common sense."
"CO2, the odorless, colorless, gas you just exhaled, is essential to life," Rucker said. "It is what plants rely on for photosynthesis to produce oxygen and food."
"We are all made of that carbon," Rucker stated; thus, labeling CO2 "a 'pollutant' is absurd, akin to declaring water vapor a threat."
Rucker said that "a rigorous cost/benefit analysis reveals the folly: trillions in economic costs from climate mandates that yield no meaningful environmental benefits, stifle innovation, jobs, and energy independence and distract from genuine environmental priorities."
Similar to Rucker, president of the Heartland Institute James Taylor told The Center Square in a statement that the Endangerment Finding defied science.
"CO2 is the gift of life for planet Earth, not a pollutant or a threat to public health and welfare," Rucker said.
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One expert told The Center Square of the freedom rescinding the Endangerment Finding will bring to the auto industry.
President of Truth in Energy & Climate Frank Lasee said in a statement to The Center Square that the EPA's move is "a clear win for buyers everywhere."
"This action liberates the auto industry from burdensome emission restrictions and money-losing electric vehicle mandates, allowing manufacturers to build the cars and trucks consumers truly want," Lasee said.
"President Trump deserves strong applause for this decisive step," Lasee said.
Sterling Burnett, director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute, also noted the victory the EPA's rescinding brings to the car industry, telling The Center Square in a statement: "Today is a win for car and truck buyers.".
Repealing the Endangerment Finding is "long overdue and good for the American people," Burnett said. "Trump should be applauded for taking this action."
"Now it's time to strike another blow for affordability and strike while the iron is hot to rescind endangerment for power plants as well," Burnett said.
Executive Director of the CO2 Coalition Gregory Wrightstone noted that "rescinding the endangerment finding is great but it's not the ballgame."
"Not only does the rescission have to stand up in court, it must result in the overturning of the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, where the Court wrongly ruled the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases even though Congress did not expressly authorize it," Wrightstone said.
"Even if the Trump EPA wins in court with respect to rescinding the endangerment finding, without also overturning Massachusetts v. EPA, the next Democrat-run EPA will simply re-issue the endangerment finding and all the Trump EPA's great work will have been erased," Wrightstone said.
Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot, said in a statement to The Center Square that "removing the CO2 Endangerment Finding from our lives will remove the legal basis for the misguided nonsense in the name of climate we've had to endure for the last several decades."
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldinannounced Thursdaythat he and Trump would be repealing the Endangerment Finding in the "single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history."
