Jean Chemnick on Washington Journal explains President Trump’s June 2024 EPA repeal of the "endangerment finding" for six greenhouse gases, dismantling the 2009 legal framework (post-Massachusetts v. EPA) that allowed federal climate regulations under the Clean Air Act. Lawsuits are pending, with Supreme Court challenges expected by 2026, and critics—including Germany and Obama—call it a fossil fuel victory, undermining U.S. Paris Agreement commitments. Callers debate China’s emissions (+300% since 2000), state-level solar barriers, and Hanford nuclear shutdowns as alternatives, while Chemnick notes industry divisions and the looming regulatory void. The move risks stalling climate progress until Congress acts, deepening global leadership gaps. [Automatically generated summary]
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Joining us this morning is Jean Chemnick.
She's a reporter with Politico's EE News, here to talk about the president's announcement yesterday of repealing climate pollution regulations and the headline from EE News: EPA repeals endangerment finding.
So what does that mean, Gene Chemnick, and why is that important?
So this is more than just a rule.
It's sort of the condition for all climate change rules.
Under the Clean Air Act, you have to decide that pollution is harmful before you regulate it.
So what they did is pull that decision, which was made back in the Obama administration, and that has allowed the agency to regulate cars and power plants and oil and gas development and require reporting.
And, you know, it could have, you know, been used for other sectors in the future.
And they're basically rolling it back and saying that for the purposes of regulation, the six greenhouse gases are not pollution.
So is this considered a big change?
Yes, it's a very big change.
I mean, it's basically the end.
If the courts were to uphold it, and the next two years will settle that, but this would be the end of climate regulation until Congress acted, whenever that would be.
So you see this going to the courts?
It's definitely going to the courts.
It's already going to the courts.
Lawsuits are already being filed.
You know, there will be a whole bunch of challenges about the process that led to this, about, you know, the substance of the rule, and it'll probably eventually make it all the way up to the Supreme Court who will make the final decision.
We want to get our viewers to join us in this conversation about the Trump announcement yesterday to revoke the endangerment finding on greenhouse gases.
Here's how you can join the conversation this morning.
Democrats dial Republicans dial in at 202-748-8001.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
And a reminder, you can text us as well, include your first name, city, and state, at 202-748-8003.
Let's listen to the president yesterday when he was asked about concerns that the rollback will have on public health.
I tell him, don't worry about it because it has nothing to do with public health.
This is all a scam, a giant scam.
This was a ripoff of the country by Obama and Biden.
And let's say Obama started it and got it rolling.
And a terrible ripoff.
They'll have more money to spend for health care.
If you look at it, now they can go out and spend it on something that's meaningful.
President Trump, when asked about health concerns over the rollback, Gene Shemnik, I want to show you and viewers and have you respond to the former president, Barack Obama, who put this in place on X saying 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.
Also, the fossil fuel industry can make even more money.
Take that last point from the former president.
Was the White House lobbied by the fossil fuel industry for this?
You know, the fossil fuel industry is actually divided on this.
You know, not all everyone in the oil and gas industry thinks this is a great idea for a couple reasons.
One, they're trying to access markets abroad that still care about climate change, and this could make it harder for them to do that.
They could face more barriers going into Europe, for example.
You know, and second, you know, there's a reputational hit if people know that they're sort of emitting without any limitation.
So there are some companies that wanted this, there are companies that didn't.
The big trade groups did say they did not want this rollback or at least had some qualms about it.
But I mean, it's really driven more by ideology than by business.
This is something that some of his supporters really cared about.
How is the world reacting?
You know, the general stepping back of the U.S. on climate change is not popular abroad.
I mean, there's the sense that the U.S. is the second largest emitter these days, but it was the largest emitter for a long time.
And, you know, greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for centuries, you know, in the case of carbon.
And so most of the carbon up there is ours, or at least the West's, and we're more responsible for this global phenomenon.
So there's some anger.
It is eroding some goodwill around the world.
Who's the number one emitter and what are they doing?
China's the number one emitter.
You know, they're building a lot of different stuff, but a lot of it is green energy these days.
You know, I mean, there are always questions about whether maybe they've peaked their emissions.
You know, I mean, they're a huge, huge, huge emitter, but they're also a huge country and a huge economy.
And they are leaning into electric vehicles, to renewable energy, not for altruistic reasons, but because they think they benefit from it.
So.
All right, well, let's get to calls.
Brian in Washington and Independent.
Good morning, Washington Journal.
Morning, Brian.
Hey, if I could make a comment and then ask Gene a question, and my comment is going to be just to everybody out there that's in journalism: how the conversation about government shutdown has made the Democrats responsible for it.
And if you go back to the shutdown in the first Trump occupation, Trump tried to, from the White House, tried to say, hey, okay, enough of the shutdown.
We're opening back up.
And the Speaker of the House said.
All right, Brian, Brian, we've moved on to the EPA and the announcement by the President.
Do you have a question or comment about that?
I'm sorry.
I thought I got a free comment there.
But my question in regards to the environment is during the Bush-Cheney administration, they decided that the West Coast versus the East Coast on energy costs, it was unfair for people out here where I'm at.
We are on hydropower and we have inexpensive electricity.
And so Bush and Cheney decided that we should have rates that the East Coast people have for more expensive electricity and how that was put into action.
And it has never went back to say, hey, if you want to run nuclear or coal, you've got to pay more dough for the cleanup.
But if you're running turbines off of a flow of a current of a river, then you're good to go.
There's no disaster other than the environmental disaster of the salmon migration is huge.
Brian, I'll jump in.
Gene Chemnek, are you familiar with this?
I cannot, not really, not to be able to comment on it.
We'll go to Cheryl.
That's okay.
We'll go to Cheryl in Maine, Democratic caller.
Yes.
Hello.
Thanks for taking my call.
I'm calling about the fact that Trump told oil executives when he met with them in Mar-a-Lago April 2024 that it would be a great deal if they raised $1 billion for his campaign.
In exchange, he would get rid of the Biden-era regulations and make sure no other regulations went into effect.
So in effect, he was saying he would give them a deal.
And that's exactly what happened.
So we're all in a mess because of it.
Gene Chemnik?
Yes.
I mean, fossil fuels companies do want rollbacks of Biden-era rules universally.
They want, you know, changes to a lot of those rules.
The question with this one, what distinguishes the rule yesterday is that it's sort of the rule to end all rules.
It's the absence of regulation.
And what some companies would prefer is rules that they say are manageable.
They're definitely weaker than the Biden-era rules by a large margin, but that there would be some kind of a placeholder rule in place for things like energy development.
Now, they may still try to find a way to have an energy development, oil and gas, methane rule.
It'll be interesting to see how they do that.
But they want things like that for the reasons that I mentioned earlier.
It actually benefits a lot of companies, not all of them, to have something like that in place.
Andy in Brooklyn Independent, welcome to the conversation.
Your question or comment?
Thank you, Pussy San.
Thank you for the guests today.
My comment is about the structuring of the wealth class system in America created by oil investors and how energy keeps financial banking and people enslaved to the system that we live in.
Let's talk about monopolies in America.
Utility companies are monopolies.
They're regulated monopolies, but they're monopolies.
They're in cahoots with the oil companies and they're price gouging.
I cannot believe that I'm turning off everything I have and I'm still paying over $600 almost on mortgage payment on electricity, sometimes twice as much.
We need to regulate or get rid of these monopolies and make energy structures based on renewables and things that are not based on oil that makes plastics and destroy our economies.
They run the banking systems.
It's just unfair.
All right, Andy, I'm going to jump in.
Gene Chemnick, do you have any thoughts on what you heard there from the caller?
I mean, I can't speak to a lot of it.
The one thing I would say is that there are a lot of states that put up barriers to things like community solar, structural barriers, policy barriers.
And in the Biden administration, at least, there was some thinking about that.
And maybe there still is thinking in certain states, but that does exist.
There are policies in place in a lot of places that make it impossible for communities to come together and co-own a solar project, even if it would offset some of the power costs.
Go back to the Obama administration and when they issued this endangerment finding rule.
How did that come about in the first place?
Sure.
Well, in 2007, there was an important Supreme Court decision.
This is obviously during the end of the Bush administration.
Where, you know, EPA was saying, we don't think we need to regulate greenhouse gases.
They're not mentioned in the Clean Air Act.
And the court said, well, you have to think about whether or not they endanger the public.
And if they do, you should regulate them under the Clean Air Act.
So years go by.
There's this assessment done under two different administrations.
The Obama administration comes in and they look at the science, and there's a lot of science to show that human emissions are driving harmful warming.
And they come to this finding.
And that paves the way for first vehicles to be regulated for greenhouse gases and then power plants and oil and gas methane.
So that was the beginning of it.
They've been regulated for 16 years.
It's been kind of a ping-pong match.
You know, a Democratic administration comes in, they put in place a rule.
Trump gets elected.
He rolls them back.
That happened with the Obama rules.
It's happening with the Biden rules.
There has been a lot of inconsistency and uncertainty for business to deal with.
And that is the history so far of regulation.
John in Georgia, Republican.
Yes, good morning.
Good morning, John.
I don't think that anything the United States is doing or will do will make a difference until China and India make significant changes to what they do.
Each of those countries has approximately 1.4 billion people.
They occupy, I mean, they represent about 35% of the world's population.
In the same period of time since the year 2000, the United States has reduced the CO2 emissions by about 17%.
China's gone up 300%.
India's gone up 250%.
China emits about, what, 12 kilotons per year?
India about 3 kilotons per year.
If the United States were to achieve net zero by the year 2050, all China would have to do is go up 40% to overcome that reduction.
It doesn't make any sense.
John, let's take your numbers.
Litigation Ahead00:13:10
Gene Chemnick.
You know, I can't fact check all of those numbers right now.
I don't cover China that closely.
I have colleagues who do.
What I would say is that the U.S. economy was already very developed in that timeframe, whereas China and India are still developing.
So it's not really an apples-to-apples comparison.
And I don't think there are any estimates that China is going to go up 40%.
And there are actually estimates that they've peaked their emissions.
They've made that commitment by 2030.
And so, you know, There are some problems with that analysis.
It is definitely true that China and India are huge emitters, and I'm not here to say that they're necessarily doing what they would need to do to contain emissions either.
But it is not true that the entire U.S. economy is an important contributor to climate change.
Daniel's in Louisiana, an independent.
Good morning.
Good morning.
How are you doing?
Morning.
Go ahead with your question or comment.
Well, I kind of got a question, I guess, and a comment, but I'm kind of curious about job burning.
If you watch, if you type in and do a search on John Brennan with the CIA and you do a search about job burning and chemtrails, geoengineering, weather warfare.
All right, Daniel, I'm going to move on to Terry in Westville, Illinois.
Democratic caller.
Terry, your question or comment about the announcement from the White House yesterday on this EPA regulations.
Thank you.
He always ruled this stuff back trumpy, like just saying, yeah, we got to do a little bit to stop this.
Like the guy just before saying, well, we can't, why should we stop if China's putting out the most?
Well, if we're the second most, ain't that a big help?
You ain't going to get completely clean, and we need to go with newer solar stuff.
It's, you know, like we, I see a say on the TBS morning news, they couldn't afford their teachers.
So you put up solar panels, and now you give these teachers big bonuses because they paying power bills to the school district.
It just helps.
So Terry, let's learn from Gene Chemnik.
What's next from the administration after this announcement?
So litigation is the main thing that happens with this rule.
You know, it'll go to the district court.
It will see what happens there.
And then, like I said, probably eventually the Supreme Court will take it up and will decide whether this stands.
If it does, then for the most part, greenhouse gases will not be regulated at the federal level unless Congress eventually passes a climate law or an amendment.
This could spur more action at the state level.
It could lead to a lot of litigation against high-emitting facilities.
And, you know, as far as other rules go, I mean, there's just going to have to be rule makings to see what happens with power plants and oil and gas development and all of these other things.
But this is definitely the first step towards getting rid of all of those.
The president announcing yesterday a repeal of climate pollution regulations put in place during the Obama administration.
We want your questions or comments about the announcement.
You can join us if you're a Republican at 202-748-8001.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
Gene Chemnick, do you expect that the White House, while there is litigation going on, makes some moves by executive order?
And if so, what are they?
Well, I think they're trying to contain what states do to regulate greenhouse gases.
That will be interesting to watch.
There was an executive order last year to look at state policies.
That will be another area where there's a lot of litigation.
Because when you get rid of regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, there is an argument that that frees states to regulate vehicles at the state level.
So, in theory, and this has not been litigated, we'll see what happens in the courts.
But in theory, you could have an Idaho rule for vehicle emissions and a California one.
And you could have a patchwork of state policies potentially governing these emissions because there isn't a federal law anymore to preempt them.
This is all going to be litigated.
It's not clear that that's how it would work.
So, that's a problem.
And then this could also spur states to do more to regulate stationary sources like power plants and factories and whatnot.
So, all of that remains to be seen.
All right.
Yeah, they don't want that to happen.
Go ahead.
Okay, we'll go to Joe, who's in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky.
Good morning.
Morning, Joe.
I have a question about the Green New Deal and what effect that has had.
All that money that's being spent that was spent on that, how has that helped?
Or do we know yet?
Jean Chemnik?
A lot of it has been rolled back.
A lot of those policies were prescribed in one big beautiful bill last summer, you know, and other things have been canceled.
The most consequential thing that came out of that was an extension of tax credits for a variety of green technologies, wind, solar, vehicles.
And they did spur an expansion of those technologies, more investment in them.
There were very good quarters for those technologies, lots of grow out of solar, et cetera.
But those are expiring because of the policy last summer.
So not all the money is being spent because of that other bill.
And, you know, I mean, it's hard to know exactly what would have happened if it had run its course.
Let's go to New Jersey.
Jerry is watching.
They're on the line for Democrats.
Hello, good morning.
I have a comment and a couple of questions for you.
The comment is: I get confused because here in New Jersey, we cannot use plastic bags at all.
We have to use the reusable ones.
But I went to Myrtle Beach in July, and they used the plastic bags.
They have not followed that rule.
So, how do we separate even states?
Like, we've got South Carolina doing one thing, which evidently hurts the climate.
And then we got New Jersey following the rules.
So, we don't even forget about China.
I'm thinking in my own country, we don't do the same rules.
Let's take that point.
Jerry, let's take that point.
Jean Chemnick, well, I would say that yesterday's decision is probably going to mean that there's more variety between states on climate regulation than there otherwise would have been because it's going to get rid of a federal floor for things like vehicles, power plants, etc.
So, it makes it more likely that it'll kind of be state by state or groups of states working together to deal with emissions, and that many states will not have any policies in place at all, potentially.
Walker in Royalton, Minnesota, independent.
Hey, morning.
Morning.
My opinion, it's a global issue.
We have to work together in that matter.
Doesn't matter point and finger at China who produces more or less.
We have to set an example and get better than all the others.
I've seen the development in Germany, the impact on the water quality, air quality, when they restricted carbon output, cars, and factories and so on.
And so, well, that's my opinion.
I think we should work in that direction and invest in the future.
All right.
Gene Chemnick, there are leaders from around the world, NATO allies gathering in Munich for the security conference there.
The annual gathering to talk about a variety of issues.
Climate change is on the agenda as well.
I am sure it is, but probably not from the U.S. delegation.
You know, the U.S. has dropped out of the Paris Agreement again, the Paris Agreement being the 2015 global deal on climate change.
China's still in it.
India is still in it.
Most other countries in the world are still party to it.
We've departed twice, so we're not part of that effort.
We've even pulled out of the underlying framework for climate agreements.
So, you know, if you know, I think that the world is still cooperating on climate change.
It's just not something that the U.S. is participating in on the federal level at the moment.
You can tune in to our coverage of the Munich Security Conference if you're interested in the climate change discussion and other discussions.
If you go to our website at cspan.org, we are going to have live coverage from the conference today and tomorrow.
Bob in North Carolina, Republican.
Hi, Bob.
Hi, Farmer Bob here.
Good talking to you.
Thanks for calling in.
What's your question about the climate?
Hey, Gene, let me ask you something.
And do you know what caused the last ice age?
You know, I do not.
Okay, well, I just like you to consider something.
With the greenhouse gas emissions, which are supposed to warm up the atmosphere, the temperature.
And don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of conservation.
I'm all in favor of health and everything.
But if we raise the temperature a couple of degrees of the world, it might prevent the next ice age.
And the last ice age ended, what was it, 12,000 to 30,000 years ago, something like that.
Is that correct?
So, Bob, your point.
Well, my point is, my point is, if we warm up the atmosphere, it might prevent the next ice age.
And the next ice age will come.
Okay.
Okay.
Bob in North Carolina.
Kurt in Orient, Washington, Independent.
Washington Journal, did that guy just say that if we put a bigger hole, the ozone will be ahead of the game?
Holy cow.
I used to use antiperspirant in a canned air saw.
Now I think we're all using stick deodorant, right?
Not spray cans to put our antiperspirant on.
But Gene, I got a question.
We had an article done by the local print-on-paper newspaper in Spokane, Washington.
The Uplander did an article by a nuclear, an ambassador for nuclear energy.
He retired from the nuclear industry.
And his article stated that if they shut down the nuclear whoops program at Hanford, Washington, in six months, the rate payers from the local utility company Avista would have reduced electrical rates because we wouldn't be supplementing an obsolete nuclear power facility at Hanford,
which contributes zero to the electrical grid and has less than 80 workers there that could be redistributed through the Westinghouse operation at the Hanford facility.
Shutting Down Hanford's Obsolete Nuclear Program00:00:45
And we would all get cheaper electrical rates by not supplementing a defunct nuclear program at Hanford, Washington.
All right, Kurt, I have to jump in.
Gene Chemnick, your final thoughts here.
You can finish watching this online at c-span.org.
We take you live now to the Munich Security Conference, where French President Emmanuel Macron is speaking.
You're watching C-SPAN.
We'll take another 30 seconds.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's my great pleasure before this day of intense discussion concludes to welcome a very special guest of honor here before dinner time starts.