What’s Changed—and What Hasn’t—Since the EPA’s Endangerment Finding

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By  Rebecca Owen, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: In 2003, several states and environmental groups sued the U.S. EPA for violating the Clean Air Act by not regulating emissions from new vehicles. When the case eventually reached the Supreme Court, a group of climate scientists contributed an amicus brief—a legal document in which a third party not directly involved in the case can offer testimony—sharing data demonstrating that rising global temperatures were directly caused by human activity. This led to the Supreme Court deciding that greenhouse gases did constitute pollutants under the Clean Air Act and, ultimately, to the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health. The endangerment finding became the basis for governmental regulation of greenhouse gases. Sixteen years later, the Trump administration is poised to repeal it, along with other environmental protections. In a new commentary, Saleska et al., the authors of the amicus brief, reflect on the brief and the damage the endangerment finding’s potential repeal could cause.... 

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