Althouse: "By overhauling massive rules on the endangerment finding, the social cost of carbon and similar issues, we are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion..."

March 12, 2025

"By overhauling massive rules on the endangerment finding, the social cost of carbon and similar issues, we are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion..."

"... and ushering in America’s Golden Age. These actions will roll back trillions of dollars in regulatory costs and hidden taxes. As a result, the cost of living for American families will decrease, and essentials such as buying a car, heating your home and operating a business will become more affordable. Our actions will also reignite American manufacturing, spreading economic benefits to communities. The EPA will continue to protect human health and the environment while unleashing America’s full potential. That means reconsidering the regulations that have restricted every sector of the economy, such as the illegal Clean Power Plan 2.0, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and Particulate Matter 2.5 levels. Under President Trump guidance, the EPA also has ended the electric-vehicle mandate that threatened to destroy America’s auto industry and made cars cost more...."

Writes Lee Zeldin in "EPA Ends the ‘Green New Deal’/We’re keeping people and the environment safe while overhauling rules that stifled our full potential" (Wall Street Journal).

62 comments:

Wilbur said...: Thank you, DJT.
I never thought I'd see the day.; 3/12/25, 2:04 PM
n.n said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/12/25, 2:10 PM
Jimmy said...: That is great news. the EPA specialized in making life difficult for normal people. Imposing 'standards' that were never voted on, and extracting millions in fines. Latest news says inflation is down, gas price down, egg price down. Once the weight of all the BS regulations is gone, I suspect things will boom again.; 3/12/25, 2:11 PM
n.n said...: Science and economy advance when bureaucracy and kleptocracy progress.; 3/12/25, 2:16 PM
gilbar said...: this is THE WORST NEWS to EVER hit THE AMERICAN PEOPLE..

*if*, by "American People", you mean: The Democrat Party.
Otherwise, it's The BEST NEWS, in a LONG TIME; 3/12/25, 2:27 PM
MaxedOutMama said...: This will prove popular among the average citizens.; 3/12/25, 2:29 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: Can I get tallow fries with that bacon-double awesome burger, Mr. Zeldin?; 3/12/25, 2:31 PM
Quayle said...: I noticed back during the Al Gore era, that a lot of the people really pushing the climate change story were on the boards of the "solution" companies. I've been wondering ever since, if this wasn't perhaps the biggest pump-and-dump scam every perpetrated.; 3/12/25, 2:34 PM
MadisonMan said...: We'll see. I'm optimistic (but I always am) but we'll see how it plays out in the long run. Of course, the media are not likely to report on this honestly.; 3/12/25, 2:41 PM
Iman said...: I just read that gas prices are the lowest they’ve been since March of 2021.; 3/12/25, 2:42 PM
Josephbleau said...: The US innovates, China imitates, and the EU regulates.

Hopefully this will work and eliminate the hollow moral panic of climate catastrophism.

The EU including Canada will be pissed as they won’t do the same and will become uncompetitive. China will be pissed because they lose the advantage of the US hobbling its economy and the death of the solar and lithium markets.

This will make America so strong the entire world will want to move here, but they already do.; 3/12/25, 2:46 PM
Iman said...: “Since Trump got elected, Ruth Marcus, Jim Acosta, Norah O'Donnell, Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell, Chris Wallace, Joy Reid, Neil Cavuto, Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart, Lester Holt all resigned or were fired.

They shut down 538 and now they're getting rid of the entire NYT editorial board. Amazing.“

—— Mark Hemingway; 3/12/25, 2:50 PM
Jupiter said...: It is possible that the air quality standards have some practical, scientific basis. If so, we may hope that upon reconsideration, they will be retained, or even improved upon. However, the "scientific" basis for the EV mandates is the "Climate Change" hoax. Even were it not a hoax, it would still not be practical, for the simple reason that any possible unilateral reduction in the CO2 emitted by the US and Europe is more than outweighed by the continuous increase in the emissions of China and India, among others.; 3/12/25, 2:51 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and Particulate Matter 2.5 levels

Please explain wtf these standards have to do with climate change. Oh yeah, absolutely nothing.

Lee Zeldin is a liar or misinformed (hell, why not both).; 3/12/25, 2:52 PM
Jupiter said...: We had best hope that CO2-driven "Climate Change" is a hoax, because otherwise it is our future. The Saudis aren't going to leave the oil in the ground, and the Australians are prepared to dig as much coal as the Chinese and Indians can burn. However, that future is a prediction from an admittedly incomplete and untested model. Meanwhile, the history of climate is very well established, by a wide variety of experimental methods. And what it tells us is that, for most of the Earth's recent history (the last million years), our present level of population would have been quite impossible, as most of the World was too cold to support modern agriculture. If you want to worry about catastrophic climate change, cooling is the proven threat. Imagine a World that can support, at most, a billion human beings. We currently have about 9 billion. Maybe they can all move to Mars?; 3/12/25, 3:01 PM
Luke Vost said...: It will be interesting to watch this experiment that Mr. Trump is conducting. I hope all these changes will not turn out to be a tragedy for all of us. 🤔; 3/12/25, 3:06 PM
Josephbleau said...: More good climate related news for Mark Steyn. After his libel damages awarded by the swamp jury were reduced from $1mm to $5k he was just sanctioned by the judge for bad faith misconduct in the trial, related to false statements, this is very heartwarming.

https://iowaclimate.org/2025/03/12/breaking-judge-sanctions-michael-e-mann-for-bad-faith-trial-misconduct-in-mann-v-free-speech/

“ The plaintiff and his lawyers knowingly mislead the court with erroneous information, and “Dr. Mann knowingly participated in the falsehood, endeavoring to make the strongest case possible even if it required using erroneous and misleading information.””; 3/12/25, 3:08 PM
Dave Begley said...: This is the day I've been waiting for. I will tell the OPPD Board of Directors about this on March 20, 2025. They don't know about things like this as they aren't broadcast on MSNBC or CNN.

Now we need to get the hack 21 GOP RINOs to vote to repeal green tax credits.; 3/12/25, 3:11 PM
Dave Begley said...: Quayle:

CAGW is the biggest scam in human history. Trillions spent for nothing.; 3/12/25, 3:12 PM
Dave Begley said...: Massachusetts v. EPA is dead. Amen!; 3/12/25, 3:14 PM
Dave Begley said...: Carbon dioxide, in trace amounts in the atmosphere, was never a threat to human life. But the Left made it so and that resulted in billions of dollars being spent on the scam.; 3/12/25, 3:25 PM
n.n said...: A stochastic process with unreliable statistics is a plausible but improbable concern with diverse dependencies that haven't been discerned and the metrics of record do not support.; 3/12/25, 3:35 PM
GatorNavy said...: Francis Merton is smiling from ear to ear; 3/12/25, 3:39 PM
Rocketeer said...: Freder, why are you railing against a connection that Zeldin never made?

It’s always been obvious your reading comprehension was poor, but this is surprising even for you.; 3/12/25, 3:43 PM
traditionalguy said...: At last somebody willing to speak truth about the great Co2 hoax.; 3/12/25, 3:45 PM
Larry J said...: Green New Deal was the Madison Avenue marketing name for what would've more accurately been named the Green Leap Forward. Like Mao's disastrous Great Leap Forward after the Communists gained control of China, the Green Leap Foward was based on shoddy science and political stupidity. The Great Leap Forward caused from 40-60 million deaths. The Green Leap Forward had the potential to do the same.; 3/12/25, 3:48 PM
Rabel said...: 31 things list.

It's going to take time. Most of these will have to go through a process of posting notice of the change and the justifications for it and allowing public comment.

Courts will slow it down too.

But this is a great thing even if it takes a while.; 3/12/25, 3:52 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: But won't that hurt Musk's Tesla sales? I thought Trump was trying to make money for Elon!; 3/12/25, 4:01 PM
WhoKnew said...: Freder said: "Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and Particulate Matter 2.5 levels

Please explain wtf these standards have to do with climate change. Oh yeah, absolutely nothing." The connection is that these rules had nothing to do with improving air quality or human health. They were designed to make coal-fired plants illegal as part of the insane net zero push that the climate change cultists push. It is the same with the attempt to ban internal combustion engines by setting impossible to meet mileage requirements.; 3/12/25, 4:01 PM
Dave Begley said...: I can't wait for Francis Menton's take on this.; 3/12/25, 4:16 PM
Original Mike said...: "Please explain wtf these standards have to do with climate change. Oh yeah, absolutely nothing."

These "standards" are a surreptitious means to shut down power plants in furtherance of the left's anthropogenic global warming program. (I apologize if I misunderstood the point of your question; it wasn't clear to me.); 3/12/25, 4:31 PM
Aggie said...: Two things of note on NPR today, on my way home from the farm:

1. A report on the Iditarod race this year, where the route has been lengthened to find snow, and the dogs are being challenged by the warm weather. This, the announcer solemnly intones, is solely due to human-caused anthropogenic warming. So now they have moved to direct attribution for every warm spell, instead of trotting out the tenuous theoretical one that cannot be supported by the data (see: 'Mann').
2. Second, a report on 'Economic Data' released today, and a discussion about an array of consumer prices being a couple of percent lower than in the same period last year. The story quoted a couple of dry sources reciting what was behind this, from some bureau. You know what word they never mentioned? 'Inflation'. Also, 'Inflation Rate'. The economic data they evaluated and discussed at length was the inflation rate ! The subject of the story was the Inflation Rate - but they never actually used the words, because they don't want the listeners to understand what they were just hearing: Good News for consumers on Inflation, courtesy of President Trumps administration. I couldn't believe it.

Then, they moved into a panic story about the tragedy unfolding in the Department of Education, bringing in themes of under-served students, rampant racial discrimination, etc etc etc all due to this indiscriminate firing of all the best, truest-bluest public servants - so on and so forth.

That's how bad it is at NPR now.; 3/12/25, 4:40 PM
cf said...: Huzzah!; 3/12/25, 4:41 PM
Jim at said...: The Earth's climate's been changing for 4.6 billion years. STFU and deal with it.; 3/12/25, 5:05 PM
The Godfather said...: We knew, or should have known, from the beginning that it was a scam. They call it "GLOBAL Warming", but there's no GLOBAL authority to do anything about it.
Some European countries are ruining their economies to prevent GLOBAL warming. Lots of US Pols have been trying to do the same thing. Europe and the US can't cure a GLOBAL problem, but they CAN harm their own economies -- and the Europeans are doing so. They won't burn coal, but they can't stop countries on the other side of the world from mining coal, shipping coal, and burning coal.
Let's pray that all that GLOBAL warming settles in Asia and Australia, etc., and leaves us alone.; 3/12/25, 5:05 PM
n.n said...: The planet is Greening... uh, greening, the global temperature has shifted 1 degree from the inferred average, which is inconclusively attributed to co2 change, anthropogenic that is. The ICE engines, properly tuned, have minimal effect on the environment, and exceed the effiency (i.e. conversion), perhaps, versatility, reliability, and cost of the alternatives.; 3/12/25, 5:06 PM
William50 said...: The EPA needs to rescind their classification of CO2 as a pollutant.; 3/12/25, 5:11 PM
Big Mike said...: CAGW is the biggest scam in human history. Trillions spent for nothing.

Not for nothing. It increased Al Gore’s net worth to $300 million. It took some very, very wealthy individuals and made them obscenely rich. It got tenure for Michael Mann. It chased genuine climate expert Judith Curry out of academia to make room for someone else (I don’t know who but presumably male and presumably more willing to toe the line). It gave the Democrats opportunities to yank around ordinary people, e.g., the war on gas appliances, the war on internal combustion engines, old people freezing to death in the dark.; 3/12/25, 5:20 PM
MikeD said...: Here in Commiefornia Newscum says "hold my beer". I shud leave but at 83 with emphysema it's not worth the hassle for a few years. Anyway:
Speaking of gas prices, Newscum says "Hold my Beer":
"We know that in order to be successful in addressing climate change, we must continue to reduce our fossil fuel consumption," said Liane Randolph, chair of California Air Resources Board.
California Air Resources Board approved updates to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).
"If LCFS credit prices reach their maximum allowed levels, as has occurred in the past, then retail gasoline price impacts could be $0.65 per gallon in the near term, $0.85 per gallon by 2030, and nearly $1.50 per gallon by 2035."; 3/12/25, 5:20 PM
Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...: The "climate emergency" has always been the same old "solution" trying to find a "problem". That "solution" has ALWAYS been -- less freedom, greater control, more regulations, higher taxes, more powerful and untouchable bureaucracy, and elitist trans-national government to overide sovereignty.

For 80 years it has been proposed as the way to end war, end starvation, end infant mortality, end racism, end poverty, improve the status of women ... and most recently to "save Gaia".

I happen to have decidedly non-trivial professional expertise in palæoclimate, having worked somewhat extensively with early Permian climate [~290 mya], as well as Pleistocene. For any other pros out there, GSMOW, 18/16, bivalve paradox, K-Ar, Vostok cores, and even mid-Troposphere sondes are 'old friends'.

The reality is that Earth is presently at its coolest in half a billion years, and it's a close call.; 3/12/25, 5:33 PM
Howard said...: At a minimum the regulations should be such that an AI can do a submission to another ai and you get the results back in 2 seconds with whatever conditions the AI's agreed to. The theft of time is more costly than mere dollars; 3/12/25, 5:38 PM
boatbuilder said...: Latest news says inflation is down, gas price down, egg price down. Once the weight of all the BS regulations is gone, I suspect things will boom again.

I think that you are correct, Jimmie.
But the effect of cutting down the massive government money grift will cause a big dip initially. Sort of but not quite like Reagan in '82. Hang on.; 3/12/25, 5:43 PM
narciso said...: the interest rate hikes were largely responsible for the '82 recession, and in the third world, a near Depression, with the commercial banks in Latin America; 3/12/25, 6:00 PM
narciso said...: many of these ridiculous environmental rules, lead to in a roundabout way, the ukraine and gaza wars,; 3/12/25, 6:06 PM
narciso said...: of course Carbon is not a pollutant, it is the quintessential element in all processes organic and non organic,; 3/12/25, 6:07 PM
Aught Severn said...: I happen to have decidedly non-trivial professional expertise in palæoclimate, having worked somewhat extensively with early Permian climate [~290 mya], as well as Pleistocene. For any other pros out there, GSMOW, 18/16, bivalve paradox, K-Ar, Vostok cores, and even mid-Troposphere sondes are 'old friends'.

The reality is that Earth is presently at its coolest in half a billion years, and it's [not even] a close call.

So YOU say. Who do you think you are some kind of expert? I have it on good authority from someone who has presented at the UN (the UN!) that the following is the appropriate response to this "opinion": HOW DARE YOU?!

PS, I think i fixed your quote to say what you meant?; 3/12/25, 6:08 PM
narciso said...: some time in the 22nd century, there will be proper accounting of this farce,; 3/12/25, 6:32 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: “ The planet is Greening”

“of course Carbon is not a pollutant, it is the quintessential element in all processes organic and non organic,”

It’s probably not the relatively negligible increases in temperature (at least in the US and UK a lot of their temperature “recordings” are fake anyway - interpolated from other readings in a totally non-transparent way, with algorithms that are kept secret from the public). It’s the increasing CO2 level that is primarily responsible for the reeling of the planet. More green means more vegetation, which means more food. And that is apparently supposed to be a bad thing - presumably by those trying to get us to eat insects instead of food.

The Circle of Life (or Carbon Cycle) for carbon based animals is that plants take CO2, water, and sunlight, and turn it into carbohydrates, which animals consume, using the energy stored in the carbohydrates to survive, and discharging CO2 as a byproduct. More atmospheric CO2 thus results in more plant growth.; 3/12/25, 6:40 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Fire up that Airstream, the Climate Summit is on!

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/03/12/amazon-forest-cleared-for-road-to-carry-globalist-elites-to-climate-summit/; 3/12/25, 6:54 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Why didn’t Mann just fess up that his Hockey Stick was an artifact of sloppy statistical techniques? Because it was his claim to fame, the basis of his Dissertation, as well as tenure at a prestigious university, and ultimately got him invited to speak at Climate Confabs around the world

Why did he sue Steyn, knowing that his Hockey Stick was junk science? Because it was free to him. Someone or someone’s funded his case, and will no doubt pay the minimal sanctions imposed against his attorneys a day or two ago. The couple million these people threw in to pay for the case are peanuts compared to the $bilions$ made n the CAGW scam.; 3/12/25, 6:55 PM
Dr Weevil said...: I'm curious. How can the planet be "at its coolest in half a billion years" if the last ice age, with its mile-thick ice sheet over what is now Chicago, only ended ~11,700 years ago?; 3/12/25, 6:57 PM
narciso said...: in relative terms, the idea of climate cycles are 'inconceivable' to these people; 3/12/25, 7:11 PM
Big Mike said...: narciso said...
of course Carbon is not a pollutant, it is the quintessential element in all processes organic and non organic

More to the point, it is essential to photosynthesis. I'm from the first year of the Baby Boom, and how photosynthesis takes CO2 and H2O, and uses the energy from light to turn them into molecular oxygen (O2) and organic compounds was taught to us in 6th grade science class. Apparently today's Ph.D.s are so ignorant of photosynthesis that they can argue for an atmosphere free of CO2 with a straight face.

Without photosynthesis there is no plant life. Without plant life there are no herbivores. Without herbivores there are no carnivores, and with no plant life or herbivores there are no omnivores either. Life on earth is pretty much reduced to bacteria and blue-green algae (cyanobacteria).; 3/12/25, 7:15 PM
narciso said...: I do recall when they assigned Earth in the Balance which it turns out was not based on Professor Riviere's research but a sloppy screed written by one of Gore's professors at Vanderbuilt, and a precursor 'After the Warming' from the 90s, and pointed out some of the flaws,; 3/12/25, 7:20 PM
Original Mike said...: "I'm curious. How can the planet be "at its coolest in half a billion years" if the last ice age, with its mile-thick ice sheet over what is now Chicago, only ended ~11,700 years "

Easy. Even this inter-glacial warm period is cool compared to the last 0.5Gyr.; 3/12/25, 7:34 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Not easy. If it's now "at its coolest in half a billion years" then it must in fact be cooler than it was 11,700 years ago or any other time less than half a billion years ago.

If you want to say it's now much cooler than it was half a billion years ago, but has been even cooler at some times in between, you need to say that, because it's not the same thing at all.; 3/12/25, 7:38 PM
Original Mike said...: Michael Mann news: Michael Mann sanctioned for misleading testimony a.k.a. lying

"Mann and his lawyers “each knowingly made a false statement of fact to the Court and Dr. Mann knowingly participated in the falsehood, endeavoring to make the strongest case possible even if it required using erroneous and misleading information,” Irving wrote in the filing."; 3/12/25, 7:38 PM
Original Mike said...: "Not easy."

I understood him, no problem.; 3/12/25, 7:57 PM
Jupiter said...: "The reality is that Earth is presently at its coolest in half a billion years..."
If you go back ten million years, India is an island off the African coast, and the Himalayas are not much above sea level. It seems entirely plausible that the Earth worked very differently then than it does now. This is why I prefer to look at the last million years, or even the last 0.4 million. If you look at the temperature record of the last 400Kyrs, you can see that there are basically two modes, hot and cold, and they alternate. We are currently in the hot mode.; 3/12/25, 8:32 PM
Big Mike said...: When it comes to federal regulations, there's something that longtime Washington-area residents are aware of, but the rest of you probably don't know, or even believe.

The reason we have so many asinine regulations is that it is a way for bureaucrats to show off their clout. Anyone can produce a good regulation, but it takes a lot of clout within the bureaucracy to push through a bad one.

Truth.; 3/12/25, 8:52 PM
Jupiter said...: Note also that the CO2 concentration rises after the temperature rise. This is entirely as expected, since liquids give up some of their dissolved gases when they are heated. But it is completely incompatible with the idea that a rise in CO2 caused the rise in temperature. The rise in temperature came first.; 3/12/25, 9:09 PM
Original Mike said...: "Anyone can produce a good regulation, but it takes a lot of clout within the bureaucracy to push through a bad one."

I heard an engineer discussing a bridge he designed that spanned the Mississippi; "Any engineer can design a bridge that will stand up, but it takes a really good engineer to design a bridge that just barely stands up."; 3/12/25, 10:50 PM