The Trump administration’s announcement that it may reverse the 2009 endangerment finding for greenhouse gases brought back some memories for Jason Burnett, who had a front-row seat the last time a Republican administration stood in the way of a finding.
Burnett, now 48, was associate deputy administrator at EPA under President George W. Bush and in charge of writing an endangerment finding in response to the Supreme Court’s 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision.
The ruling concluded that greenhouse gases are air pollutants, subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act, and that EPA must determine whether they could be “reasonably … anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,” as the law states.
It was a weighty issue. The Bush administration wasn’t itching to regulate greenhouse gases, and a positive endangerment finding would lead to rules limiting emissions from cars and trucks, and eventually other major sources of planet-warming pollutants too.
