US President Donald Trump will on Thursday repeal a law dating back to President Barack Obama that served as the basis for combating greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said today.
The US president will "formalize the repeal" of the 2009 law, known as the Endangerment Findings Act, she told reporters, adding that repealing the law would allow Americans to save money.
Strongly condemned by scientists and environmental advocates, such a reversal would deal a major blow to climate action in the United States, the world's largest historical contributor to global warming emissions.
Passed under the presidency of former Democratic President Barack Obama, the law stipulates that six greenhouse gases are hazardous to public health and therefore fall within the scope of pollutants regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Its passage paved the way for numerous federal regulations aimed at limiting emissions of these gases that warm the atmosphere (CO2, methane, and others), starting with trucks and cars, which emit carbon dioxide when burning gasoline.
Its repeal would therefore end emissions restrictions imposed on vehicles and allow the Trump administration to undo a number of other regulations, particularly those concerning power plants, US media reported.
The Trump administration, a strong supporter of oil and coal, has been trying for months to overturn this decision and the regulations stemming from it, much to the disappointment of many scientists who condemn the decision as contrary to science and the public interest.
“The scientific evidence of human-induced climate change and its consequences was unequivocal in 2009, and has become even more alarming and compelling since then,” more than 1.000 scientists and experts said in a public letter in July.
The US government, for its part, downplays the role of human activity in climate change and argues that greenhouse gases should not be treated as pollutants in the traditional sense because their effects on human health are indirect and global, not local.
He also believes such a repeal would help reduce the cost of new cars, after years of price increases since the coronavirus pandemic.
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