Amid a cavalcade of environmental rollbacks announced by President Donald Trump’s administration this week, plans have been revealed to reconsider the official finding that greenhouse gas emissions are harmful to public health.

Leading a barrage of 31 actions to weaken or repeal almost 16 years’ worth of US climate progress, including those regulating carbon limits on power plants, exhaust pipe emission standards, and protections for waterways, the Environment Protection Agency announced it could potentially scrap the 2009 finding that carbon emissions pose a threat to human health.

Under the then Obama administration, the Environment Protection Agency platformed a landmark finding that the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide) threaten public health that went on to form the foundation for all subsequent rules aimed at cutting pollution.

It’s all part of what Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin has called “the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in US history,” with an added promise to “unleash American energy” and “revitalise the American auto industry.”

This is a startling shift from the Agency’s founding mission to protect the environment and safeguard public health, prioritising instead a mission to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business.”

“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen,” said Zeldin in a statement. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion and ushering in America’s Golden Age.”

Unsurprisingly, the rollbacks announced this week have elicited the strongest response from environmental groups in the US, including the Center for Biological Diversity which has suggested that the US President’s “ignorance is trumped only by its malice toward the planet.”

“Come hell or high water, raging fires and deadly heatwaves, Trump and his cronies are bent on putting polluter profits ahead of people’s lives,” said Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “This move won’t stand up in court. We’re going to fight it every step of the way.”

The United States is one of the largest carbon polluter in the world, second only to China and the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases. It was the 2009 endangerment finding that set the stage for protecting the climate, following years of climate change denialism under the Bush administration prior. It went on to underpin federal regulations that have since reduced climate-damaging pollution from cars and trucks on track to save seven-billion tonnes of emissions by 2032.

It also supports regulations reducing pollution from oil and gas production and power plants under the Clean Air Act.

“Removing the endangerment finding even as climate chaos accelerates is like spraying gasoline on a burning house,” said Rylander. “We had 27 separate climate disasters costing over a billion dollars last year. Now more than ever the United States needs to step up efforts to cut pollution and protect people from climate change. But instead Trump wants to yank us backward, creating enormous risks for people, wildlife, and our economy.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has promised additional environmental rollbacks in the coming weeks. The Energy Dominance Council – established last month by the president – is now looking to eliminate an array of regulations in an effort to boost the fossil fuel industry.

Speaking at the oil and gas conference, CeraWeek in Houston earlier this week, the department’s interior secretary, Doug Burgum, said: “We will come up with the ways we can cut red tape. We can easily get rid of 20 to 30% of our regulations.”

This all comes just weeks after the mass firing of at least 700 members of staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the name of efficiency at the behest of the Elon Musk run department, DOGE. The sweeping cuts and rapid loss of experts has now all but ‘crippled the agency’s ability to protect marine species such as critically endangered whales, sharks, sea turtles, and corals.’

“The incredible ocean animals that Americans adore are in serious danger as Musk plays power games with hard-working marine scientists,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Getting rid of the experts carrying out important conservation work has devastating and unlawful consequences for both wildlife and people.”

Earlier this month, the Center filed a Freedom of Information Act request to reveal the expanse of the sea life-saving work now impeded by the mass firings. 

“If we don’t stand up for science and biodiversity, we stand to lose clean water, whales and corals, hurricane protection and fisheries,” said Sakashita. “Oceans make up most of our planet and their ecosystems are vital for supporting life on Earth. We’ve barely begun to even learn about these precious marine species, and once they’re gone they’re gone, we can’t get them back.”

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