By John McFerrin, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has proposed that it eliminate most of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases. In 2009, it was decided that greenhouse gases threatened the health and welfare of current and future generations. As a result, greenhouse gases should be regulated. Now it has decided that they are not such a problem and has proposed rescinding its 2009 finding. The result will be that the Environmental Protection Agency will no longer regulate greenhouse gases.

Right now, this is only a proposal. The Environmental Protection Agency is accepting comments on the proposal until September 22. 

How to Comment

You can comment in one of four ways:

1.  Go to the federal rulemaking portal eRulemaking (www.regulations.gov).  This is the website for all the proposed federal rules so you have to enter the docket number EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194) and follow links.
2. By email to a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov; include Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194 in the subject line.
3. By  US mail to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket Center, OAR Docket, Mail Code 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460
4. By hand delivery to Courier. EPA Docket Center, WJC West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004.

The deadline to comment is September 22 at 11:59 p.m.  

The current docket lists almost 500 comments. Many of the comments are on behalf of dozens or hundreds of people so the actual number of commenters is substantially higher. It is possible to comment anonymously but you should assume that your name and comment will become part of the public record.

The finding that greenhouse gases should be regulated as a pollutant originated in 2007.  The United States Supreme Court determined that greenhouse gases were a pollutant that could be regulated. It directed the EPA to determine whether such emissions cause or contribute to climate change that endangers public health or welfare.

The EPA got to work, consulting documents that reflected a scientific consensus such as the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. Global Change Research Program as well as health impact studies. It found that climate change can increase morbidity and mortality through increased global temperature, air quality, changes in extreme weather events (indirect) and net impacts on food production, forestry, water resources, sea level rise, energy infrastructure, and ecosystems (direct).

It proposed the finding in April 2009 and received comments before making it final in December 2009. After the finding, the EPA entertained several petitions from industry groups, suggesting that the finding was scientifically flawed and asking that it be rescinded. The EPA responded by saying, in so many words, that it got it right and the finding would stand. 

In subsequent litigation, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the finding. The United States Supreme Court declined to review the matter, so the Court of Appeals’ decision became the final word.

Then we had an election.

Executive Orders by President Trump on January 20, 2025, and February 19, 2025, addressed a perceived need to evaluate burdens caused by unnecessary regulations on energy affordability, job creation, and national security. They instructed agencies like the EPA to review regulations for consistency with the Constitution and the authorizing statute, respectively.

Now the EPA wants to rescind the 2009 finding that greenhouse gases threaten the health and welfare of present and future generations. It relies upon arguments such as:

• Increasing carbon dioxide emissions are being countered by “natural cycles” such as increased plant growth and aquatic plant growth.
• The average temperature peaked in the 1930s and has held steady since then. Even if they were still rising, cold is a more serious problem than heat.
• There have not been increased health risks due to extreme weather events.
• There have been minimal effects to public health and welfare in the United States based on rises in sea level and related weather and climactic events. EPA further questions why the Endangerment Finding did not take adaptation to sea level rise into consideration.  
• The data used for climate modeling may be inaccurate.
• Climate change is not purely human caused. 
• Increased CO2 is good for plant growth and agriculture.

The EPA’s most telling argument, the one that makes its other arguments irrelevant, is that we had an election. Climate change policy was an issue in the election, and the people chose the candidate who thinks that climate change is not a problem. If that is what the people chose, then that is what we should do. It did not explain how this is anything other than arguing that the answer to a scientific question is something to be voted upon.