Real World Problems
In the summer of 2023, 71-year-old Robert Wooley stood by his pool in Phoenix, Arizona. It was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit that day. Mr. Wooley decided to head back inside, but tripped and fell. The rocks he landed on had become blisteringly hot after baking in the Arizona sun. He found himself unable to get back up as his skin slowly burned. Mr. Wooly began “wiggling across the hot rocks like a sidewinder rattlesnake,” and the pain was so excruciating that he “just about surrendered.” His wife saved him.
At the Arizona Burn Center in central Phoenix, doctors treated Mr. Wooley for third degree burns on his hands, arms, shoulders and legs. He described putting on fresh bandages every day as similar to “being skinned alive.” In 2023, Mr. Wooley was one of 85 patients hospitalized in Phoenix for contact-related burns.
In Phoenix, excessive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have intensified record-breaking temperatures. In the past year, the city endured 113 consecutive days in which temperatures exceeded 100 degrees. In 2023 alone, the sweltering temperatures killed 645 people. Phoenix isn’t the only city in the U.S. where the number of heat-related deaths is rising.
Trump Blocking Solutions to a Serious Threat
In 2004, 297 Americans died from heat exposure. In 2018, it was 1,008 Americans, and in 2021, 1,600. If the Trump administration continues to champion carbon intensive energy, temperatures will rise and cases of severe burns and heat related deaths will increase.
With the Trump administration under way, the government has been attempting to curtail the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate GHG emissions by repealing the 2009 Endangerment Finding — the scientific and legal foundation of the EPA’s authority to regulate GHG emissions under the provisions of the Clean Air Act. The finding specifies that six potent GHGs — carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride — are high enough in concentration to be considered a threat to public health.
When asked to explain his rationale for repealing the Endangerment Finding, the current EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, spoke on CNN, saying that “We can rely on 2025 facts, as opposed to 2009 bad assumptions.” Zeldin has claimed that particular language in the Engagement Finding doesn’t make sense legally, and that emissions regulations imposed by the EPA are costing American auto businesses and families upwards of one trillion dollars. In a time when the vast majority of Americans believe that the economic state of the country is either “only fair,” or “poor” (71 percent), and when the price of automobiles, car insurance and car repairs have risen since the beginning of the pandemic, lowering the cost of automobiles would alleviate some of the economic pressure that so many Americans have become burdened by.
Despite Zeldin’s argument, repealing the Endangerment Finding is unwise. Data compiled by the World Meteorological Organization has found that the number of man made GHG emissions reached historical records in 2024: burning fossil fuels produced 37.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide. 2024 was the hottest year ever recorded since global temperature monitoring first began in 1850. The 2015 Paris Agreement set a lofty goal of containing global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. That mission failed last year.
Analyses of the potential economic damage that climate change could exact reveal numbers that eclipse Zeldin’s $1 trillion in air pollution taxes. The Bulletin of Economic Scientists published findings in 2024 that equate one degree Celsius of global warming with a 12 percent reduction in global GDP. Another study predicts that global income will fall by 19 percent if emissions continue to increase. Critically, that same report finds that losses associated with a warming climate — 38 trillion dollars globally — would be six times greater than the cost of addressing climate change.
In addition to the practical implications of repealing the Endangerment Finding, Zeldin’s arguments are shaky. He has proposed that the EPA must repeal the Endangerment Finding because the language of the Clean Air Act permits the EPA to regulate emissions only if they cause harm at a local or regional scale. Since climate change is a “global” phenomenon, Zeldin argues that the EPA cannot legally restrict the emissions that contribute to it. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, however, declared that air pollutants that warm global surface temperatures qualify as regulatable under the Clean Air Act. Zeldin has also asserted that the EPA based their decision to approve the Endangerment Clause on the “bad assumptions” made by scientists regarding climate change in 2009. In 2010, studies found that the scientific consensus on climate change sat between 97 percent and 98 percent. Today, that number has climbed to 99.9 percent.
It would be in the keenest interests of the United States to address climate change. Ecological consequences such as extreme droughts, flooding, heatwaves, sea level rise and extreme weather events will cause unprecedented levels of damage and will exacerbate hardship on a global scale. Interestingly, Zeldin spoke about climate change back in 2016 when serving as a member of Congress and expressed a markedly different opinion on the issue than he currently propounds. In a congressional hearing, Zeldin said: “…the key is to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. To become more environmentally friendly…and to pursue clean and green energy.” Now, as a member of the Trump administration, he echoes one of the quintessential arguments promulgated by climate deniers: “the climate has always been changing.”
Clearly, Zeldin understands that, to reduce the United States’ reliance on fossil fuels and reverse climate change, the U.S. must transition to clean energy production. In recent months, however, Zeldin has rather spinelessly abandoned his previously held opinions on climate change to appease the demands of a pro-fossil fuel administration. If Zeldin means to effectively uphold the EPA’s mission to protect the health of Americans and the environment, he must readopt favorable views of clean energy. Safeguarding American citizens — and the world — from the consequences of climate change will require Zeldin and the rest of the Trump administration to uphold the Endangerment Clause.
Article Description:
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has specified that the Trump administration will move to repeal the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which upholds the EPA’s legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. This decision marks another step in the Trump administration’s pro-fossil fuel agenda and demonstrates that the U.S. is no longer governed by leaders who support addressing climate change.