This finding could strengthen challenges to proposed efforts to rollback emissions standards and carbon emissions regulations in the United States. In the landmark Endangerment Finding the EPA determined that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, which created a legal obligation for the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. The Science paper comes three months after a senior Republican senator said that the Trump Administration might still try to repeal the landmark decision.
“When the Endangerment Finding was issued, the evidence supporting it was extremely compelling,” said Phil Duffy, lead author on the paper. “Now, that evidence is even stronger and more comprehensive. There’s no scientific basis for questioning the endangerment finding.”
The Science paper includes 16 authors from 15 different organizations, including WHRC’s Dr. Sue Natali. It assesses how the scientific evidence has changed in the nine years since the finding was issued, with a specific focus on climate change impacts for public health, air quality, agriculture, forestry, water resources, sea level rise, energy, infrastructure, wildlife, ocean acidification, social instability, and the economy.
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