For Billionaire Polluters, Another G(r)ift; for Us, a Lump of Coal
Massive tax cuts to the morbidly rich aren’t enough. Polluting industries need to kill regulations, too, to extract all the wealth from plunder they can before human life goes the way of dinosaurs.
Most references to ice this winter have been for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the government-sanctioned domestic terrorists sicced on Democratic-run cities, not the byproduct of the historic bone-snapping cold enveloping much of the country, particularly the northeast.
With the imminent terror ICE is inflicting, and the chain of concentration camps either already operational or soon to be, it’s understandable the climate isn’t paramount on people’s minds.
But something happened last week that arguably is more important than anything we currently face since it affects the fate and future of all living creatures on this planet.
In what some are characterizing as “a gift to billionaire polluters at the expense of Americans’ health,” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now no longer required to acknowledge the “endangerment finding,” the determination from 2009 confirming carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions threaten public health, that served as the impetus for vehicle tailpipe emission limitations and stricter regulation on power plant pollution.
The convicted felon who solicited bribes from fossil fuel executives while running for his second term spewed that his EPA Secretary, Lee Zeldin’s, move was “the single largest deregulatory action in American history”, telling reporters, “This is a big one if you’re into environment. This is about as big as it gets.”
Translation: This is the most significant knockout punch to the environment anyone has ever delivered.
Welcome back smog and all the concomitant comorbidities associated with air pollution!
It’s a “smash and grab”. Because, as we know, the morbidly rich come for the massive tax cuts but expect more. Polluting industries need to kill regulations, too, to extract all the wealth from plunder they can before human life goes the way of dinosaurs.
Former president Barack Obama—not one to weigh in a whole lot these days—blasted the decision on X, stating:
Today, the Trump administration repealed the endangerment finding: the ruling that served as the basis for limits on tailpipe emissions and power plant rules. Without it, we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change — all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money.
John Kerry, Obama’s secretary of state and President Joe Biden’s climate envoy explained, “Repealing the Endangerment Finding takes Orwellian governance to new heights and invites enormous damage to people and property around the world. Ignoring warning signs will not stop the storm. It puts more Americans directly in its path.”
How?
Eliminating the endangerment finding removes the government’s authority to track, report, and limit climate-damaging pollution from cars and trucks when transportation is the worst source of climate pollution in the US.
While it does not apply yet to regulations on power plants and fossil fuel infrastructure regulated under a separate section of the Clean Air Act, it clears the way for those to be next to go. And, if this current oligarch’s fire sale continues, go they will.
Joseph Goffman, who worked on the endangerment finding and helped write and implement the Clean Air Act, then served as President Biden’s EPA air chief, warned, “Instead of the entire house of cards of all EPA climate regulation collapsing all at once today, it’s going to be like a row of dominoes falling.”
California governor Gavin Newsom—no stranger to witnessing the devastation of climate-related catastrophes—added:
If this reckless decision survives legal challenges, it will lead to more deadly wildfires, more extreme heat deaths, more climate-driven floods and droughts, and greater threats to communities nationwide – all while the EPA dismisses the overwhelming science that has protected public health for decades.
Naturally, the excuse out of the White House is always, “We’re saving money!” EPA head Lee Zeldin even trotted out, “Who paid the biggest price? Hardworking families, small businesses, millions of Americans who just want a reliable, affordable car to get to work or take their kids to school or go to church on Sunday.”
Nice talking points for the right-wing hate media audience. But, in fact, blocking renewable energy development and infrastructure upgrades to shield us from climate change damage costs more. Harvard University science historian and professor of earth and planetary sciences, Naomi Oreskes, explained:
Trump’s decisions make no sense from either the perspective of environmental protection or the cost of energy. By blocking wind projects that are just about ready to go on line, and reviving dangerous and uneconomic coal-powered plants, this administration is raising both the direct costs of energy for the American people, and the indirect costs we suffer through polluted air and climate damage.
When Zeldin, the adjudicated sexual assaulter and former best friend of Jefferey Epstein, and their merry band of mandarins and quislings say “lower costs,” they aren’t talking about you and me. They’re talking to their economic royalist donors who expect a handsome return on their investment. They just happen to have an archipelago of robust right-wing hate media networks at their disposal to convince average hard-working Americans that erasing the “leftwing wish list of costly climate policies” benefits them financially and physically.
As The Guardian recently reported:
The administration’s strong pro-fossil fuel policies seem to have helped spur higher electricity prices which have been outpacing overall inflation rates, creating headaches for consumers, say energy experts and some congressional Democrats.
Electricity prices rose 5.1% between September 2024 and September 2025, a much higher increase than the overall 3% inflation rate for goods and services in the period, according to consumer price index data.
Air pollution, while not exclusively linked to climate change, is a contributor to millions of premature deaths per year, particularly in underfunded and urban areas. It has been linked to cancers, respiratory ailments, cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and antibiotic resistance.
Because of this, many states have enacted and will continue to enact robust regulations on carbon emissions, despite the destruction coming out of Washington.
The New York State Senate, for example, last week passed legislation to further protect the state's natural resources and meet its climate goals. The Environmental Bond Act, The Environmental Protection Fund and The Climate Superfund Program would, according to a press release would:
propose stricter standards for toxic air and lead contaminants
call for certain businesses to annually disclose their emissions
provide municipalities with funding to remediate drinking water site contamination
prohibit the sale of many consumer goods containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
require heavy distribution warehouses to reduce their air pollution impacts on disadvantaged communities and demonstrate their operations comply with federal and state air quality standards.
As of July of last year, 18 states had enacted low-emission vehicle standards, which create jobs, spur research, development, and innovation, which makes the US automotive manufacturing market more global competitive.
Eliminating the emission standard does nothing but set the US back behind foreign auto makers already making inroads in other countries, which aren’t going to bother with American-made cars and trucks anymore. Add that to other industries like solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal that now have no more federal financial incentive to continue. What we wind up with is a patchwork of democratic states with strict environmental standards up against republican-led states all in with chucking nearly a decade of environmental progress intended to improve quality for all Americans, Democrat AND Republican.
The environment isn’t partisan. This will hurt red-state republican voters as well.
That doesn’t exactly help the economy, does it?
It was republican president Richard Nixon, after all, who signed the Clean Air Act in 1970.
Even Nixon is apparently too “woke” for this regime.
In 2023, the Biden EPA announced national pollution standards for passenger cars, light-duty trucks, and medium-duty vehicles for model years 2027 through and beyond 2032.
In a press release, the agency explained:
These standards will avoid more than 7 billion tons of carbon emissions and provide nearly $100 billion of annual net benefits to society, including $13 billion of annual public health benefits due to improved air quality, and $62 billion in reduced annual fuel costs, and maintenance and repair costs for drivers. The final standards deliver on the significant pollution reductions outlined in the proposed rule, while accelerating the adoption of cleaner vehicle technologies.
These standards will provide greater certainty for the auto industry, catalyzing private investment, creating good-paying union jobs, and invigorating and strengthening the U.S. auto industry.
U.S. companies created more than 300,000 clean energy jobs in the two years after President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in August 2022.
Two years ago, Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power and previous deputy communications director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, predicted, “Donald Trump is promising to kill more than 300,000 American clean energy jobs as part of his billion dollar ‘deal’ with oil executives.”
He just did.