On Feb. 12 President Trump reversed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Bill, announcing the official termination of President Obama’s 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding. Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that this termination was the largest deregulatory action in U.S. history, eliminating the regulation containing the emission for all vehicles and engines of model years 2012 to 2027, including chemicals released by power plants. Obama’s finding was issued on Dec. 7, 2009, and declared that multiple greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, etc. posed a threat to public health, establishing that new motor vehicles contribute to 23 percent of the total U.S. population,increasing the risk of asthma and lung damage from increasing amounts of ground level ozone.
The majority of chemical release comes from the emissions from vehicles and power plants.
Though justifying such chemical emotions, prices for motorized vehicles, such as automobiles, became much more affordable for American families and decreased the price of living by lowering the price of transportation trucks. Under the reversal of the EPA Bill, and it expands the consumer choice as well as furthering advancements the “American dream” Trump’s claim that this new bill will bring further prosperity and economic growth for society; he claimed that Obama’s finding “severely damaged the American auto industry,” and “Prices went up for incredibly worse products,” Reducing the prices for new vehicles and avoiding costs of purchasing equipment related to electric vehicles with an estimated saving cost of over $2,400 per vehicle.
With the aggression cost for the The Endangerment Finding being more than $1 trillion followed the justification towards the EPA with it being an “additional costly burden.”(EPA). With the American citizens relying on automobiles to reach their job, health care, and additional resources, the limits and additional cost of cars are seen to harm “American’s ability to climb out of poverty or reach essential services.”
The growing rate of greenhouse gasses being emitted into the atmosphere every year will, in result, bring harm towards public health.
“From food availability to a loss of species, it’s a huge problem,” said Bree Johnston. With the increase in temperature from carbon emissions the layer of carbon that traps heat with our atmosphere has steadily grown. However with the termination of Endangerment Finding previous restrictions toward carbon releases have now been destroyed, increasing the amount of which factories and automobile manufactures can release into the environment.
From communities to the environment, an increased amount of greenhouse gasses affects animals just as much if not more than it does humans. The increasing threat for ocean acidification causes huge threats toward life in the seas, thinning out the shelled organisms, weakening coral reefs, and reducing biodiversity.
“Everything that we have here on Earth has evolved to a specific range of temperature.” said Johnston when temperatures increase in such a short period most living organisms are not able to adapt resulting in devastating consequences. Human intervention such as these have resulted in 75% of ecosystems and land mass alterations and even why some animals go extinct. The effects of this act raises concern not only the environment and animals but for the world people live in.
