US President Donald Trump framed his sweeping rollback of federal climate change policy on Thursday as a political win over the Democratic Party's 'radical' environmental agenda, reprising a message Republicans have used in past elections and could turn to once again ahead of November's crucial midterms.
His announcement at the White House was one of the most significant moves of his second term in office. The president said he was revoking an Obama-era 'endangerment finding' from 2009 which held that pollution harms public health and the environment.
For almost 17 years, the US has used that scientific finding as the legal basis to establish policies to reduce emissions from cars, power plants and other sources of planet-warming gases.
'This radical rule became the legal foundation for the Green New Scam,' Trump said, using a term popular with Republicans for describing Democratic environmental and climate policies.
The move marks the culmination of a decade-long push by Trump to tear up policies that Democrats and many climate experts say are needed to rein in emissions. And it is one of the most far-reaching reversals of American climate policy yet.
Trump, who has called climate change a 'hoax' and a 'con job', dismissed the science underpinning the Obama-era rule in remarks that at times took on the air of a victory lap over his Democratic opponents. He focused on the economic impacts of reversing the endangerment finding, arguing that boosting fossil fuels instead of clean energy would lead to lower energy costs for American consumers.
Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, made the announcement alongside the president and described the 2009 scientific ruling as the 'holy grail of climate change religion'. This decision is 'the single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America,' he said.
The rollback sparked fury among Democrats and environmental groups who said it would wreck the US's ability to combat climate change. 'We'll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change - all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money,' former President Barack Obama wrote on social media.
Trump's administration has previously reversed numerous Obama-era energy and environmental regulations, including withdrawing the US from the Paris climate accord. Whether the strategy of climate rollbacks will help Republicans pick up votes in the November midterm elections remains to be seen.
Polls show that while Trump emphasizes 'lower costs' for consumers, a growing number of Americans express concern about global warming, which could pose challenges for Republicans who embrace Trump's climate record.
