EPA roll back

WASHINGTON (AP) — In what he called the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history,” the head of the Environmental Protection Agency announced a series of actions Wednesday to roll back landmark environmental regulations, including rules on pollution from coal-fired power plants, climate change and electric vehicles.

In all, Zeldin said he is rolling back 31 environmental rules, including a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action against climate change.

Zeldin said he and President Donald Trump support rewriting the agency’s 2009 finding that planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The Obama-era determination under the Clean Air Act is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources.

Environmentalists and climate scientists call the endangerment finding a bedrock of U.S. law and say any attempt to undo it will have little chance of success.

“In the face of overwhelming science, it’s impossible to think that the EPA could develop a contradictory finding that would stand up in court," said David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.