Roberts: Whatever EPA protecting it’s not environment or us
Published 1:30 am Saturday, February 28, 2026
By Paul Roberts / For The Herald
This month the Fossil Fuel Protection Agency — formerly the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — announced the repeal of the Endangerment Finding it made in 2009, which provided the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gases (GHGs) that endanger human health and welfare. What the Trump administration said and did not say about the repeal is instructive.
What was said: President Trump has repeatedly called climate change a “scam” and a “hoax.” In announcing the proposed repeal last July, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said: “We are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.” (See: “Gutting of Clean Air Act will cost us in lives, more,” The Herald, Jan. 31)
At the announcement, Trump called the repeal “the single largest deregulatory action in American History.” Added Zeldin: “This is a big deal,” the move would end an era of “heavy-handed climate policies.” He said the policies had been used to “steamroll into existence a left-wing wish list of costly climate policies, electric vehicle mandates, and other requirements that assaulted consumer choice and affordability.” Zeldin accused Democrats of launching an “ideological crusade” on climate change that had “strangled entire sectors of the United States economy.”
What was not said: They did not mention EPA’s mission to protect the environment or the Clean Air Act’s purpose to protect public health and welfare.
No mention was made of reducing pollution, or the consequences of an ever-warming world.
Nothing was said about rising costs resulting from climate disasters, health care, public health, labor, infrastructure or insurance.
The past 10 years have been the warmest on record. Climate change poses a clear threat to public health and welfare, increasing health impacts such as asthma, cardio vascular disease, cancer, premature deaths; and increasing climate disasters such as extreme heat, catastrophic wildfires, floods, storms, melting glaciers and sea level rise. These impacts and costs are increasing every year in a warming world.
Two former heads of the EPA did comment.
Christine Todd Whitman, EPA administrator under President George W. Bush and former Republican governor of New Jersey said: “It’s mind-boggling to me how an agency set up by a Republican administration, supported by bipartisanship all the way through, has now become kind of the enemy of the environment.” She adds: “That’s a scary thing because it takes a long time to get back.”
Gina McCarthy, former EPA administrator and White House climate adviser in the Biden administration called the Trump administration’s actions reckless: “This EPA would rather spend its time in court working for the fossil fuel industry than protecting us from pollution and the escalating impacts of climate change.”
The repeal of the rule is another step by the Trump administration promoting fossil fuels and isolating the U.S. from the rest of the world on climate science, clean energy and economics. They have borrowed from big tobacco’s play book, sowing doubt in place of facts.
However, the science is beyond dispute. GHGs generated from burning fossil fuels are the primary cause of global warming. The National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine issued a report last September reinforcing this conclusion.
Internationally, the U.S. stands alone, and not in a good way. The U.S. has withdrawn from the Paris agreement. Nearly 200 nations sent delegations to the COP30 climate conference last November. The U.S. was the only major nation not attending, joining the absences of Afghanistan, Myanmar and San Marino
Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently criticized Europe’s climate policies as “a climate cult” while promoting MAGA policies.
The U.S. and Russia are the only major powers promoting fossil fuels over renewables even though renewable energy is now more affordable. The Chinese are leading the world in developing renewable clean energy at speed and scale. The Europeans are following the same path.
This EPA has abandoned its core mission to protect the environment in favor of protecting the fossil fuel industry. They describe environmental protection and climate change as a “religion,” “crusade” and “cult,” implying they are beliefs or choices. This practice is straight from the autocrat’s playbook: open hostility to verifiable facts, endlessly repeated lies, and replacement of facts with magical thinking.
The laws of physics and climate change are not a choice. They apply regardless of one’s beliefs, religion or politics.
The administration wants to bring this issue before a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court, hoping justices will overturn Massachusetts v. EPA, the 2007 case that gave EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
The best we can hope for is the courts affirm that the EPA was created to protect the environment, the Clean Air Act was passed to reduce air pollution and the laws of physics are beyond the court’s jurisdiction.
Paul Roberts is retired and lives in Everett. His career spans five decades in infrastructure, economics and environmental policy including former Chair of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency Board and advising Washington cities on climate change.
Eco-nomics
“Eco-nomics” is a series of articles exploring issues at the intersection of climate change and economics. Climate change (global warming) is caused by greenhouse gas emissions — carbon dioxide and methane chiefly — generated by human activities, primarily burning fossil fuels and agricultural practices. Global warming poses an existential threat to the planet. Successfully responding to this threat requires urgent actions — clear plans and actionable strategies — to rapidly reduce GHG emissions and adapt to climate-influenced events. The Eco-nomics series focuses on mitigation and adaptation strategies viewed through the twin perspectives of science and economics. Find links to the series thus far at tinyurl.com/HeraldEco-nomics.
