President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the Environmental Protection Agency would be repealing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health, undermining the government's ability to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
The “Endangerment Finding,” established under President Barack Obama in 2009, has been a legal precedent to combat global climate change for over a decade. The decision significantly weakens governmental regulation around carbon-producing industries. It also limits industry-specific requirements in terms of automobiles and domestic power operations, according to a congressional research report.
The Endangerment Finding has served as the cornerstone for congressional climate action over the past 17 years and was the basis for the establishment of eco-friendly vehicle features, carbon cap initiatives, and the "Clean Air Act."
The finding has served as the EPA's fundamental empowerment to limit carbon dioxide emissions, along with methane gas and four other greenhouse gases that scientists say are supercharging the overall climate. The finding has also served as a basis for financially backing the green industry.
Maureen McCann, a UCF alumna, works as a meteorologist with Channel 13. She said that greenhouse gases work to "alter" existing weather patterns and "amplify" the heating of the climate.
"Carbon dioxide is a heat-trapping gas. It occurs naturally in our environment, but it also is a byproduct of the burning of fossil fuels. As carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere, it acts as a blanket, trapping heat rather than letting it escape into space. This is known as the "greenhouse effect," a concept that leads to rising global temperatures," McCann said.
The repeal of the endangerment finding is anticipated to increase the country's overall emissions by 10% over the next 30 years, according to the New York Times.
The reversal comes six months after the EPA proposed its rescission, on the basis of findings from the Trump-formed “Climate Working Group” within the U.S. Department of Energy.
"Referred to by some as the holy grail of federal regulatory overreach,” Lee Zeldin, head of the EPA, said in a press conference on Thursday. "The 2009 Obama EPA Endangerment Finding is now eliminated."
The reversal is also set to repeal vehicle standards for climate emissions established by President Joe Biden, dismantling a large part of the regulation surrounding the largest carbon-producing industry.
“These major restrictions were the reason for driving up car prices to unprecedented levels,” President Trump said at the conference on Thursday.
A study by Yale estimated that, as of 2024, around 62% of Floridians are worried about the impacts of climate change.
A study entitled "Advancing Energy Equity in the City of Orlando," conducted in 2024, found that Orlando has retrofitted nearly 60 buildings across the city in accordance with green energy solutions, resulting in annual savings of nearly $2.5 million attributable to a 23% reduction in energy consumption. This comes from the city's unanimous vote in 2017 to be 100% emissions free by 2050, which followed both its 2014 commitment to the U.S. Department of Energy’s "Better Buildings Challenge" and Mayor Buddy Dyer's 2007 "Green Works" Initiative.
“In absence of national leadership on sustainability, cities have filled that void. As a global city and the most visited destination in America, Orlando is well positioned to be a showcase for the future of cities and ways to advance urban sustainability,” James Bacchus, distinguished university professor of global affairs and the director of the Center for Global Economic and Environmental Opportunity at UCF, said in a local review on environmental progress.
Supporters of this decision argue that it will stop government overreach in the economic sector and return regulatory control to the states. Fundamentally, the overturning of the endangerment finding undermines the EPA's ability to regulate specific emissions harmful to the environment and upends over a decade of scientific understanding.
"The repeal of the Endangerment Finding does not alter the central unambiguous scientific conclusion: The climate change that people are causing threatens human lives and well-being," the American Meteorological Society said in a brief statement on Friday.
By Joseph Wiedeman