The Environmental Protection Agency rejected the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and well being. It means the agency can no longer regulate them.
E.P.A. administrator Lee Zeldin has claimed that previous administrations used the endangerment finding to justify “trillions of dollars” in regulations on polluting industries and its reversal will help the economy.
The agency is racing to repeal a scientific finding that requires it to fight global warming. Experts say the goal is to get the matter before the justices while President Trump is still in office.
The judge ruled that Energy Secretary Chris Wright violated the law when he handpicked researchers to work in secret to produce a government report on global warming.
The United States is the only country to pull out of the global agreement among nations to fight climate change. European diplomats say the U.S. reputation is suffering.
Moves by the Trump administration underline America’s isolation in the effort to control the greenhouse gases, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, that are dangerously heating the planet.
Records show that Karen Budd-Falen, a top Interior Department official, didn’t disclose a contract between her husband and the developers of a mine approved by the agency.
Karen Budd-Falen in 2017. Ms. Budd-Falen, currently the third-ranking official at the Interior Department, also worked at the agency during the first Trump administration.
The president’s embrace of fossil fuels and withdrawal from the global fight against climate change will make it hard to keep warming at safe levels, scientists said.
America’s greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas, which had finally started to decline, rose 1.9 percent after Mr. Trump returned to office.
The action could make it more difficult for a future administration to rejoin the Paris climate accord, the agreement among most nations to fight climate change.
Democrats demanded information from seven top U.S. oil companies about any meetings with the Trump administration regarding plans to control Venezuela’s oil industry.
Karen Budd-Falen, the No. 3 at the Interior Department, didn’t disclose a $3.5 million water-rights contract between her husband and the developers of a Nevada mine, records show.
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