NY Times - The E.P.A. said this week it would revoke its own ability to fight climate change. It’s the latest move in an extraordinary pivot away from science-based protections.
Ever since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson’s science advisory committee warned of the dangers of unchecked global warming, the United States has taken steps to protect people from these risks.
Now, however, the Trump administration appears to be essentially abandoning this principle, claiming that the costs of addressing climate change outweigh the benefits. The effect is to shift more of the risk and responsibility onto states and, ultimately, individual Americans, even as rising temperatures fuel more extreme and costly weather disasters nationwide, experts say.
“It’s a radical transformation of government’s role, in terms of its intervention into the economy to try to promote the health and safety of citizens,” said Donald Kettl, a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy.
Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, this week proposed to repeal the landmark scientific finding that enables the federal government to regulate the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. In effect, the E.P.A. will eliminate its own authority to combat climate change.
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