FOR THE WEEK OF AUG. 04, 2025

EPA wants to drop finding that lets it limit planet-warming pollution

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is moving to retract a scientific finding that lets the government ease climate change by regulating emissions from burning coal, oil and natural. A proposal would rescind a 2009 statement that says carbon dioxide and methane "greenhouse gasses" endanger human lives, according to media articles. The policy is the EPA's only tool to limit planet-warning pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industries under the Clean Air Act. The proposed change, which awaits public comments and other review steps, is sure to be challenged in court by environmental groups. "The effort, if successful, would represent President Donald Trump's most sweeping attempt to dismantle climate change policies," says Politico, a news site in suburban Washington, D.C.

The pending shift also would drop limits on tailpipe emissions, designed to encourage automakers to make more electric vehicles. (Cars, trucks and buses are the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.) "These actions will create American jobs, including incredible progress to bring back American auto jobs," says EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. "The Biden and Obama era regulations being reconsidered have suffocated nearly every single sector of the American economy."

The Trump administration, which this year has ended U.S. efforts to tackle global warming, recently shut the EPA's Office of Research and Development as a cost-saving step. It has 12,400 employees. The president encourages more production and use of fossil fuels, rather than promoting cleaner energy (wind, solar, battery and hydroelectric). "The Trump EPA will continue to work with states, tribes and communities to advance the agency's core mission of protecting human health and the environment," it says in a statement this summer.

EPA head says: "We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more." – Lee Zeldin, agency administrator

Environmentalist says: "This is simply a giveaway to the fossil fuel industry and an attempt to undo pollution standards to limit heat-trapping emissions from motor vehicles, from power plants, from oil and gas operations." -- Rachel Cleetus, climate and energy policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge Mass.

Blogger posts: "The Environmental Protection Agency should be renamed immediately as the Environmental Destruction Agency just out of simple honesty." – Lucian K. Truscott IV at Substack

Front Page Talking Points Archive

Common Core State Standard
SL.CCS.1/2/3/4 Grades 6-12: An essay of a current news event is provided for discussion to encourage participation, but also inspire the use of evidence to support logical claims using the main ideas of the article. Students must analyze background information provided about a current event within the news, draw out the main ideas and key details, and review different opinions on the issue. Then, students should present their own claims using facts and analysis for support.