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More than three dozen Democratic senators have begun an independent inquiry into the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following a huge change in how the agency measures the health benefits of reducing air pollution that is widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the climate crisis.
In a regulatory impact analysis, the EPA said it would stop assigning a monetary value to the health benefits associated with regulations on fine particulate matter and ozone. The agency argued that the estimates contain too much uncertainty.
Previously, the EPA placed a dollar figure on the benefits of cleaner air, factoring in outcomes such as fewer premature deaths and reduced illness, including asthma attacks.
The 2009 endangerment finding determined that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare and should therefore be controlled by the EPA. By revoking it on Thursday, officials eliminated the legal foundation enabling the government to control planet-heating pollution.
The senators criticized the updated policy as “particularly troubling” and said the repeal “destroys that framework and results in a failure to faithfully execute EPA’s statutory mandate to protect human health”, according to a letter sent to the EPA on Thursday.
The effort is being led by the ranking member of the Senate committee on the environment and public works, Sheldon Whitehouse. The lawmakers have asked the EPA to provide documents and details explaining how it reached its decision by 26 February.
Senate Democrats are seeking to know the reasoning behind the EPA’s move; what factors the agency will consider when carrying out Clean Air Act rule-making; whether it has considered no longer quantifying health effects for other pollutants; and whether it consulted any outside parties, including the secretary of health and human services, the US surgeon general, or public health specialists.
“It is literally zero surprise that they knew their hand-picked climate deniers weren’t putting out real science,” Whitehouse wrote on X in response to an article suggesting the Trump administration ignored the recommendations of scientists. “Their nonsense has never been real, but part of a fraudulent propaganda campaign, designed by fossil fuel to protect its ‘free-to-pollute’ business model.”
The repeal is part of Trump’s sweeping attacks on US climate policy. On Thursday, he said the endangerment finding formed “the basis for the green new scam”. Since returning to office last January, the Trump administration has taken aggressive steps to roll back pollution regulations and promote fossil fuel production. Critics argue that this anti-environmental agenda benefits the president’s fossil fuel-industry donors.
Trump’s decision drew broad condemnation from climate scientists and advocates focused on environmental protection, public health and economic justice. Asked on Thursday to address environmental concerns about the new rule, Trump said: “Don’t worry about it.”
“This has nothing to do with public health,” he said of the endangerment finding. “This is all a scam, a giant scam.”
