Trump government attempts to rip up 31 environmental protections and reviews damage of greenhouse gases
13 March 2025, 09:30 | Updated: 13 March 2025, 12:20
Donald Trump's government is reassessing whether greenhouse gases damage people's health, amid a dizzying blitz of more than 30 environmental protections that limit air and water pollution.
"We are driving a dagger through the heart of climate change religion and ushering in America's Golden Age,'' wrote Lee Zeldin, the head of Trump's Environment Protection Agency (EPA) in The Wall Street Journal yesterday.
But environmentalists said the dagger was instead pointed at "the heart of public health".
The proposals will have to clear various legal hurdles, so are not guaranteed to stick. But if successful, they will save trillions of dollars in regulatory costs and "hidden taxes", Mr Zeldin said.
They hope this will tackle the cost of living by lowering the price of things like cars, home heating and running a business.
The EPA on Wednesday laid out plans to rollback a staggering 31 different rules that clean up cars, power plants and waterways - the latest in a slew of moves to axe climate and environmental protections.
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It included one that has so far underpinned US government climate action: a scientific finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health, which was finalised under Barack Obama in 2009.
Greenhouse gases that cause climate change have been linked to things like extreme heat, flooding, the spread of disease and air pollution.
