From the MANHATTAN CONTRARIAN

Francis Menton

Now coming into view are the specifics of EPA’s strategy to end the Obama/Biden efforts to strangle the energy sector of the economy in the name of “saving the planet” from climate change. A document released by EPA last week on June 11 lays out the plan for repeal of the absurd (and dangerous) regulation that would have ended use of fossil fuels to generate electricity by some time in the 2030s. This EPA document is particularly interesting for the way it treats — and effectively sidelines — the so-called Endangerment Finding, the 2009 regulatory action that is the basis for all of the Obama/Biden fossil fuel suppression efforts.

President Trump made it clear from the first day of his new administration that he intended to undo as many as possible of the Obama/Biden era burdens and restriction on American energy production and use. Among the Executive Orders that Trump signed on “Day 1” (January 20, 2025) was one titled “Unleashing American Energy.” All agency heads were directed to review existing energy regulations for potential rescission as being overly burdensome. Excerpt:

Sec. 3.  . . .  (a)  The heads of all agencies shall review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, settlements, consent orders, and any other agency actions . . . to identify those agency actions that impose an undue burden on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources — with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources. . . .

On March 12, EPA followed through with an announcement of what it called the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history.” The announcement identified and listed some 31 EPA regulations and programs as unduly burdening the American economy, and therefore targeted for extinction. These ranged from rules designed to eliminate fossil fuel-fired power plants (called “Clean Power Plan 2.0,” or CPP 2.0), to rules restricting automobile emissions (and effectively mandating electric vehicles), to the massive “greenhouse gas reporting program,” and many, many more. The first item at the top of the list for elimination was CPP 2.0. However, at that time, the actual process for rescinding these various rules had not yet begun, and it remained unclear what approach EPA might take to effect the rescissions.

As regards CPP 2.0, that ambiguity ended on June 11, when there appeared on EPA’s website a “pre-publication” version of the document intended to initiate the rescission of CPP 2.0. The title is “Repeal of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units” The actual regulatory rescission process formally begins when this document gets published in what is called the Federal Register. Apparently, that will occur tomorrow, June 17.

There are several notable things about this document. First, it signals that CPP 2.0 will be eliminated through a process of formal “notice and comment” rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act. Second, it lays out the schedule and procedures for the rescission, thus giving an indication of when the process will be concluded (and ripe for judicial review). Third, it provides the rationale for the rescission, grounding that rationale in the language of the relevant statute (here Clean Air Act Section 111). And fourth — and most significant in my view — it uses a rationale that implicitly undoes and undermines the Biden-era “Endangerment Finding” that underlies all of the government’s greenhouse gas regulations. And it does that without ever confronting the so-called “science” of greenhouse warming. I’ll take these points one at a time.

The first seven or so pages of EPA’s document set forth the procedure and schedule of the prospective rescission. There will be a virtual public hearing 15 days after Federal Register publication (thus, in early July). Comments will be due 45 days after Federal Register publication. That means that the comment period can be closed by some time in early August. After that, EPA must respond to the comments before finalizing its action. They will want to be careful in doing that. (Any slip-up can give an opening to a court to enjoin its action.) However, relative to other rule makings, there will be no occasion in this one to modify the rule’s language in response to comments, since the rule is being eliminated entirely. I highly doubt that any commenter is going to dissuade the current EPA from rescinding this rule. While this is somewhat speculative, I expect that the rescission can be finalized by early fall. And then, on to the litigation!

Note that EPA is not taking the alternative route of just asserting that CPP 2.0 is illegal as unauthorized by the Clean Air Act and beyond the powers of the executive branch pursuant to the Major Question Doctrine as articulated in West Virginia v. EPA. The administration may well use that theory as an alternative basis to support repeal of CPP 2.0 when their regulatory action gets challenged in court. However, I think they are wise to add a second rationale to support the repeal.

Now to the interesting part of EPA’s document. The basic approach to getting rid of CPP 2.0 is not to try to attack it on the basis of the badly flawed so-called “science” of greenhouse gases and global warming. Rather, the approach is to carefully parse the language of Clean Air Act Section 111 to emphasize words that were ignored or downplayed in the previous regulatory actions.

Many discussions of the Obama-era Endangerment Finding speak of EPA supporting its prior regulatory action by having made a determination that greenhouse gases constitute “a danger to public health and welfare.” That is a shorthand which I admit I have myself been guilty of using. But the actual words of the applicable statute are different. Here are the relevant words of Clean Air Act Section 111(b)(1)(A):

[The EPA Administrator] shall include a category of sources in such list [of sources of pollutants] if in his judgment it causes, or contributes significantly to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.

Thus, it is not sufficient to satisfy the words of the statute that greenhouse gases in the aggregate or in general might be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare in some way. Rather, there must be a determination that emissions from this category of sources specifically (here, U.S. electric power plants) are reasonably anticipated to cause or contribute significantly to a danger to public health or welfare. And also, by the words of the statute, this determination is committed to the judgment of the EPA Administrator.

There is some endless discussion in the document of the impact of these semantic nuances. Here is a small sample from pages 52-53:

Consistent with its ordinary meaning, the term “significant[]” is defined as “having or likely to have influence or effect: important.” “Important” is similarly defined, in turn, as “marked by or indicative of significant worth or consequence : valuable in content or relationship.” Whether a source category’s contribution to air pollution should be considered “important” or “valuable” entails consideration of the influence, effect, or usefulness of finding such contribution. If regulating emissions of a particular pollutant from a source category would have little effect on dangerous air pollution, that source category’s contribution to the air pollution is not significant. By the same token, if regulating emissions would not be useful, taking into account, inter alia, the impacts on, and the Administration’s policies concerning, the source category, that source category’s contribution to the air pollution is not significant. An inquiry into the effect of a finding of significance necessarily involves policy considerations that will inform any subsequent regulation when making the significance determination in the first instance.

The Biden administration’s CPP 2.0 had sought to eliminate fossil fuel-fired power plants by imposing an uneconomic requirement of carbon capture and storage on any such remaining plants. But this document explains that that approach cannot comply with the statutory text:

Thus, the control options available to reduce GHGs from fossil fuel-fired EGUs [Electricity Generating Units] are not permissible as BSER {Best System of Emissions Reduction], not adequately demonstrated, cost unreasonable, or potentially ineffective in reducing emissions. Because it is likely that the Agency may be unable to develop a BSER that would result in any meaningful, cost-reasonable GHG emission reductions, the contribution of this source category to GHG air pollution is not significant.

And the Trump EPA has also caught on that greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. power plant sector have no “significance” when the broader international picture is considered. From page 63:

Unlike other air pollutants that can have a localized or regional impact and direct consequences to human health, GHGs are global pollutants. The share of GHG emissions from the U.S. power sector, including CO2, to global concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere is relatively minor and has been declining over time. In 2005, U.S. electric power sector GHG emissions comprised 5.5 percent of total global GHG emissions. This percentage has fallen steadily since then to 4.6 percent in 2010, to 3.7 percent in 2015, and comprising 3 percent of total global emissions by 2022. This relative decline is driven in part by increases in GHG emissions from developing countries that are rapidly electrifying and increasing their energy demands, including through the robust deployment of fossil fuel-fired EGUs —a trend that is likely to persist going forward. Further, many other countries burn much more coal than is utilized by the U.S. power sector. For example, in 2024, China used more than 13 times as much coal as the U.S. . . . Limiting the use of coal and other fossil fuels in U.S. EGUs does not significantly impact global GHG concentrations when other countries continue to increase their use of fossil fuels.

There is lots of other good stuff in this document — far more than I can quote here. To be fair, EPA is following the tried and true regulatory strategy of burying the public in verbiage as a way to make it as difficult as possible for a court to intervene.

As can be seen from the above, this proposed regulatory action relates to CPP 2.0 specifically, and not to the Endangerment Finding more generally. Nevertheless, the logic expressed in this document has the effect of undermining the EF and rendering it essentially ineffective. The same arguments as to “significance” of U.S.-based emissions, and as to the EPA Administrator’s right to exercise his judgment under statutory language, will apply to all other sectors where the Obama/Biden administrations had sought to suppress the use of fossil fuels. All the environmental groups that have been gearing up to defend the “science” of global warming are going to need to totally re-tool their arguments.

By Anthony Watts and H. Sterling Burnett

In an article in Politico, titled “EU has no plan for rising climate-related deaths, scientists warn,” writer Rory O’Neill warns that “Europe is increasingly grappling with illness and deaths from extreme weather and the arrival of tropical diseases but it has no plan to prevent and cope with rising climate-related health problems.” This is false. In fact, evidence from multiple sources suggests that climate and temperature related deaths globally — and in Europe — are in long-term decline, rather than increasing.

O’Neill continues:

Scientists fear mosquito-borne diseases dengue and chikungunya that were once confined to tropical regions could become endemic in Europe due to the northward spread of tiger mosquitos, which have made it as far as Brussels and 20 other towns in Belgium.

Meanwhile, heat-related deaths are projected to increase threefold by the end of the century, while deaths caused by extreme events including floods and wildfires are rising.

Perhaps the most glaring lie Politico tells is that deaths from extreme weather events are rising. The truth is just the opposite: climate-related deaths worldwide have declined by more than 98% since the 1920s and are approaching zero. (see Figure 1, below)

As shown by Dr. Bjørn Lomborg, and presented at Climate Realism, using long-term data from EM-DAT (The International Disaster Database), the annual number of people dying from weather-related disasters (which are often wrongly co-opted to be climate disasters) such as storms, floods, droughts, wildfires, and extreme temperatures has plummeted, despite moderate warming over the past century. Lomborg’s analysis exposes the inconvenient truth for climate alarmists: modern societies have become vastly more resilient thanks to technology, infrastructure, emergency response systems, and adaptive capacity.

As Lomborg rightly observes, “[t]he reason we don’t hear about this phenomenal achievement is because it doesn’t fit the narrative of climate alarmism.”

It would, in fact, be surprising if deaths from extreme weather events are rising in Europe, since neither wildfires nor floods are increasing in number or severity – two other assertions made by O’Neill that are simply flat out wrong. Data discussed in Climate at a Glance: Global Wildfires from three independent sources, including from NASA and the European Space Agency, show that globally wildfires have declined over the past few decades. (see Figure 2, below)

The figure above shows no wildfire increase in Europe, a fact confirmed at Climate Realism, here.

Concerning floods, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found no increase in flooding, and, recent European floods have not be historically unusual, as discussed at Climate Realism, here, here, and here.

Politico’s temperature death assertions are misdirection. O’Neill’s claims totally ignore the significant decline in deaths from cold temperatures, a figure that is far larger than the slight increase in deaths from heat. O’Neill cites projections that heat-related deaths in Europe could triple by 2100, based on worst-case model scenarios. But what the Politico article conveniently omits is the fact that cold-related deaths vastly outnumber heat-related deaths, and deaths from cold are on the decline.

A landmark study published in The Lancet analyzed mortality data from 13 countries, concluding that cold kills roughly 20 times more people than heat, as shown in Figure 3 below:

As a result, during the period of modest warming deaths tied to non-optimum temperatures have fallen dramatically, due to the significant decline in deaths due to cold temperatures. Warmer winters are saving far more lives than warmer summers are endangering. Yet this life-saving benefit of a modestly warmer climate is completely ignored in Politico’s climate polemic and are not accounted for in the models O’Neill cites.

As pointed out in another Climate Realism article, even within Europe, the bulk of excess mortality during winter comes from cold, not heat. In fact, energy poverty — driven largely by EU climate policies raising energy prices — leaves many elderly Europeans unable to adequately heat their homes, contributing to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths annually.

Politico attempts to whip up hysteria by claiming that dengue and chikungunya will soon become endemic in Europe due to climate change. The facts tell a very different story.

While the tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) has spread into parts of southern Europe, the number of actual dengue cases remains minuscule. As Politico itself admits (buried mid-article), there were only 304 dengue cases in the EU in 2024 — barely higher than the 275 total cases from the previous 15 years combined.

This is not an epidemic; it is a statistical blip. As Watts Up With That covered here, the principal factors behind the spread of these diseases are not temperature but international travel, global shipping, urbanization, and human settlement patterns — factors which have nothing to do with CO₂ emissions.

Perhaps the most egregious assertion in the article is that “nearly 60 million people suffered from serious food insecurity in Europe in 2021, with 11.9 million of these cases attributable to climate change.” This claim was offered without any causal evidence, because no such evidence or data exists. Rather the claim is based on claims made in climate attribution studies — computer-based guesswork dressed up as empirical science.

Europe remains one of the most food-secure regions on Earth. As Climate Realism has documented dozens of times, crop yields have risen consistently across Europe and the globe, aided by technological advances and CO₂ fertilization — the scientifically validated phenomenon where increased atmospheric CO₂ boosts plant growth and water efficiency.

If anything, climate change has so far been a net benefit to European agriculture. Far from facing existential threats, farmers in Europe are producing record harvests.

The reason why the EU has no “master plan” to combat rising climate deaths is simple: there is no crisis that warranting such a plan. Real-world data shows modern Europe is safer than ever from weather-related threats.

The greatest current public health risk stemming from climate policy isn’t disease — it’s energy poverty. As covered in multiple WUWT posts, Europe’s premature abandonment of fossil fuels has created skyrocketing energy prices, forcing vulnerable populations to choose between heating and eating.

This — not dengue fever — is where actual lives are being lost due to climate zealotry.

As always, Politico’s piece leans heavily on speculative models forecasting dire outcomes by 2100. These models fail empirical validation tests. As Roy Spencer, Ph.D, has thoroughly demonstrated, climate models continue to “run hot,” consistently overshooting actual observed warming. Even The Lancet Planetary Health scenarios that Politico cites rely on extreme worst-case climate models, RCP 8.5, which climate scientists admit is unrealistic and shouldn’t be used to forecast future climate conditions or impacts.

In summary, Politico’s piece is not journalism — it’s an extended press release for climate activists and unelected NGO bureaucrats, which regurgitates flawed model projections, cherry-picks isolated data points, and conveniently ignores real world data to the contrary that shows climate-related mortality has drastically declined during the recent period of modest warming and that adaptive capacity has never been higher.

If it wants to tout itself as a journalistic endeavor, Politico should spend less time amplifying NGO talking points and more time seeking out the truth which is easily discovered through an examination of existing, actual, data.

Heartland Institute

The Heartland Institute is one of the world’s leading free-market think tanks. It is a national nonprofit research and education organization based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.

Originally posted at ClimateREALISM