PRESS RELEASE: New Heartland Policy Brief Asks ‘Should EPA Reverse Its Endangerment Findings on Greenhouse Gases’

Published July 10, 2019

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (July 10, 2019) – Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a naturally occurring gas that constitutes only four molecules of every 10,000 in Earth’s atmosphere. The Obama administration classified CO2 as a pollutant to be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Since then, regulations that harm the U.S. economy have been legally justified by referring to this “Endangerment Finding.”

A new Policy Brief by Heartland Institute Senior Fellow Joseph Bast, titled “Should EPA Reverse Its Endangerment Findings on Greenhouse Gases,” analyzes why the Endangerment Finding, pushed by the previous administration without following EPA’s normal procedures while ignoring research that did not meet its own data-quality standards and disregarding extensive commentary opposing its decision by distinguished experts as well as its own staff, ought to be overturned.

Download the full PDF here.

The Endangerment Finding is vulnerable on purely scientific grounds. Although its supporters claim to have a “mountain” of research in its defense, upon closer scrutiny, their case is nothing more than a molehill of real science and data, on top of which is piled reams of speculation based on invalidated computer models and circumstantial evidence. This is widely known in the scientific community and understood by the Trump administration.

The grounds for reversing the Endangerment Finding are robust, and this action is long overdue.

The Policy Brief discusses:

 

  • The Obama administration’s purpose in crafting the Endangerment Finding was to help execute the “war on coal.”
  • It was EPA’s refusal to issue an endangerment finding, one way or another, that led to the Supreme Court’s Endangerment Finding decision, not EPA’s failure to regulate greenhouse gases.

To schedule an interview with author Joseph Bast, contact Media Specialist Billy Aouste at [email protected] or call 312/377-4000.