Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin described his move Tuesday to end a 2009 scientific finding on climate change as “the largest deregulatory action in the history of America.” But whether his agency is able to finalize the rollback will likely hinge on the courts.
Bracewell’s Jeff Holmstead, who served as EPA air chief under former President George W. Bush, told E&E News he was impressed by an argument involving the court’s 2014 decision in Utility Air Regulatory Group. The decision held that definitions for “air pollutant” may vary from section to section in the Clean Air Act, a ruling that EPA says supports its finding that greenhouse gases don’t merit an endangerment finding.
Referring to the EPA and White House attorneys who wrote the repeal, Holmstead noted “they believe that, under Section 202, Congress intended for EPA to regulate only pollutants that endanger health or welfare through direct exposure.”
Section 202 is the Clean Air Act provision under which the endangerment finding was crafted.
“Reading it broadly to mean that EPA can regulate pollutants that contribute to a global phenomenon like climate change implicates the ‘major questions doctrine’ because it involves questions of great political and economic significance, and Congress has not clearly given EPA authority to regulate such pollutants under the Clean Air Act,” Holmstead said.
