On February 12, the Trump administration finalized repeal of the endangerment finding – the landmark legal determination that protected Americans by limiting greenhouse gases and carbon pollution from cars, power plants, and other industries. The Associated Press reported last year that the protections mandated by this finding were projected to “prevent an estimated 30,000 deaths and save $275 billion each year they are in effect.”
Ignoring these benefits, Fox News and Fox Businesses personalities celebrated the repeal while pushing climate denial talking points to bolster support for this huge rollback of pollution safeguards — including dismissing the overwhelming scientific evidence that underpins the endangerment finding, suggesting that cold weather in winter somehow disproves climate change, or outright calling climate science a “hoax.”
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has referred to the endangerment finding as “the holy grail of the climate change religion,” while The New York Times reports that “dozens of conservative activists, lawyers, scientists and others had worked for years to prepare the case against the endangerment finding,” including a secretive campaign underwritten by The Heritage Foundation. As documented by Media Matters, this effort has also relied on a decades-long right-wing media campaign to undermine climate science.
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