Revisiting EPA climate guidelines

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 12th of February.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Up first, rejecting the logic of climate alarmism.

In July, the EPA announced it would retract a study from 2009 used to justify emissions standards in the U.S. The agency is now in the final stages of rescinding the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding that was the legal foundation for those standards.

What does the policy change mean for everyday Americans?

REICHARD: Joining us now is Philip Rossetti, he’s an energy policy researcher at the R-Street Institute, a free market think tank in Washington, D.C. He previously advised members of Congress on the Select Subcommittee on the Climate Crisis.

Philip, good morning!

PHILIP ROSSETTI: Morning!

REICHARD: For listeners who’ve not heard of it, what was this 2009 EPA study and why did it guide emissions rules under the Obama and Biden administrations?

ROSSETTI: That’s definitely something that doesn’t come up in frequent conversation or everyday conversation. But basically, rewinding a little bit further to 2007 there was a Supreme Court case Massachusetts versus EPA, and that was the Bush administration’s EPA. And obviously there was no greenhouse gas regulation at that time, and Massachusetts said, Hey, greenhouse gasses are pollutants, and therefore EPA should regulate it. And it was a five, four split in favor of defining greenhouse gasses as pollutants. And that set up the basis for EPA to say, Hey, do these pollutants endanger public health? And that’s what 2009 was under the Obama administration. They said, yes, they do, and therefore EPA has the authority to regulate them.

Every regulation that includes a climate benefit or says that it improves climate is contingent upon the endangerment finding, and there are a lot of regulations that might include some climate benefits, but there’s actually only a handful of, like, really serious climate regulations that have been proposed or even finalized, but they’ve never really taken effect because of legal challenges to them. So something that always comes up because there’s this big vision of having a big climate regulation that never kind of comes through, and this is the Trump administration saying, Hey, we’re trying to put that to bed and not let any more attempts at a climate regulation happen.

REICHARD: There’s always litigation going on in the background that you have to take into consideration. Okay, so suppose the EPA drops the study as planned. Where might ordinary Americans first feel the effect, say, in gas prices, electric bills, someplace else?

ROSSETTI: Interestingly enough, I don’t think it’s going to change much for the everyday American. And the reason I say that is because, even though there have been these big regulations focused on climate, because of the legal challenges of when they go into effect, what they can regulate, they never really kind of got the industry to fully positioned before they were repealed.

So the classic example is the Clean Power Plan that was 2015 and it would have required more renewable energy for the electric power sector, and ostensibly it would have increased electricity prices that got stayed by the Supreme Court pretty much right after it was finalized, it never went into effect, and a few years later, West Virginia versus EPA. Supreme Court decision said, Hey, you can’t actually do the Clean Power Plan at all. So these sort of ideas that would be underpinned by the endangerment finding have never really come to fruition. So it’s more this theoretical debate, and ironically, I’ve actually seen some folks who are in favor of climate regulation coming out against the endangerment, fighting on the idea that they just don’t see climate regulation as a very effective way of combating climate change.

REICHARD: Well, you touched on this, but just to clarify, will this change affect only future EPA rules, or is it going to roll back regulations that we’re paying for right now?

ROSSETTI: So it would affect future regulations primarily, but current regulations that rely on a climate benefit would theoretically be impacted. But when we actually look at the breakdown of regulations that have climate benefits, climate benefits are usually only a small portion of their overall benefits, they’re really looking at the public health benefits from mitigating other pollutants.

REICHARD: Which Americans, if any, are most likely to benefit from this shift, and who might be worse off?

ROSSETTI: Anyone who drives a car, anyone to use electricity, would theoretically benefit from there being less regulation on that. But again, because those regulations didn’t really go into effect, it’s not like people are going to see a reduction in their bills. It’s more just kind of, hey, you know, this potential opportunity for a future regulation that could have increased these costs is less likely to occur now, but this is a huge legal question about the EPA authority to regulate at all, and what a future regulation in the climate space could look like.

REICHARD: So do you think that this change will mainly help big corporations, and the benefits will then flow through to the consumer?

ROSSETTI: I don’t think that you’re going to see any corporations that get like, a profit boost or something from this, you know, because that’s just not the nature of how the current regulatory environment is. Right. There isn’t a big regulation that is going to be reversed by unwinding the endangerment finding.

REICHARD: All right, Philip, just one more question. Does this signal a broader change in how the EPA will justify major regulations going forward, you think?

ROSSETTI: Oh, I think so. You know, you look at the tactic of how to regulate and under the first Trump administration, the approach was really getting back to the basics of what is good regulation, what is the appropriate rate at which you measure a pollutant and who can effectively be regulated, and what’s the lowest cost way of mitigating pollutants. That was the old way under the first Trump administration. And now the approach is more saying, Hey, we don’t think that there is a justification for these regulations, and therefore we shouldn’t have them. So to that extent, instead of seeing kind of a more, kind of, like focused regulation on these issues, I think you’re probably just going to see less regulation.

REICHARD: Philip Rosetti researches energy policy at the R-Street Institute, a free market think tank in Washington, D.C. Philip, appreciate this. Thank you so much!

ROSSETTI: You’re welcome.