(Washington) The government of Donald Trump announced on Tuesday to return to a key decision for the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, further harming the fight against climate change in the United States.
“If it is finalized, today’s announcement would be the biggest measure of deregulation in the history of the United States,” said Lee Zeldin, the boss of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), since an Indianapolis automotive concession in the north of the country.
Supported by the fossil industries, the American president has since returned to power in January multiplied the measures hostile to the fight against global warming.
The United States is the second largest world and most important transmitter in history.
Tuesday’s announcement, which is still going to go through a 45-day public consultation, attacks a decision taken during the first term of ex-president Barack Obama.
This “endanger finding” of 2009 constitutes the legal basis of many federal regulations. Pushed by a judgment of the Supreme Court, the EPA had declared itself competent to regulate gas emissions with greenhouse effects.
But Tuesday, under the Trump presidency, the agency attacked this decision in a 302 -page document. It affirms, against the broad overall scientific consensus, that “extreme weather phenomena have not undoubtedly increased compared to historical records”, even welcoming the “beneficial effects” of greenhouse gas emissions, especially on agricultural productivity.
“Ruin the country”
According to the current EPA boss, the agency had made “intellectual shortcuts” at the time.
“The Conservatives love the environment,” said Lee Zeldin on Tuesday on the podcast “Ruthless Podcast. “But” there are people who (…) are ready to ruin the country in the name of environmental justice. »»
Its decision should notably allow a vast deregulation for the automotive sector by softening the rules on vehicle emissions.
Lee Zeldin himself acknowledged that he wishes to attack the measures imposed under the mandate of Joe Biden inciting the Americans to turn to electric vehicles.
The transport sector is the first source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, most of the Americans using the car for their daily trips.
If the American transport sector was a country, it would be the fourth largest greenhouse gas transmitter in the world, according to the NGO Natural Resources Defense Council.
Tuesday’s decision should also affect the rules for emissions from gas or coal power plants. About 60 % of American electricity is taken from fossil fuels.
Dan Becker, of the Environmental Association Center for Biological Diversity, assured AFP that the 2009 decision had resisted several legal assaults. “But this time, it is the government itself that leads the attack,” he deplored.
“Dissected things”
This backtrack will probably be disputed before the courts, to the Supreme Court. And to prove the Trump administration right would be equivalent to a reversal of case law: it is a decision of the High Court, in 2007, which was originally the “endanger Finding”.
“I hope that (the judges) will recognize that this is science and not politics,” added Dan Beckern, observing, however, that the Supreme Court is “very politicized”.
Today it is made up of six conservative judges against three progressives.
For Camille Pannu, specialist in environmental law at Columbia University, the Trump administration has not presented solid legal arguments.
“They just hope not to regulate for four years (duration of the presidential mandate, note) and do insane things,” in favor of endless procedures in court, she said to AFP.
Since his return, Donald Trump has left the Paris climate agreement and favored the exploitation of gas and oil, especially in wild regions of Alaska.
Tuesday’s announcement comes in full heat wave on the east coast of the country, more and more confronted with large -scale climatic disasters, such as devastating floods in Texas having left more than 100 dead at the beginning of the month.
