The Trump administration told a federal court its decision to revoke a key scientific finding that undergirds U.S. climate policy has no effect on its legal fight against state efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The Justice Department’s Friday filing in federal court in Vermont comes in response to arguments raised last month by environmental groups that revoking EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding undermined the Trump administration’s claims that federal authority on climate change usurps that of states.
DOJ last spring sued Vermont and New York to invalidate state laws creating “climate superfunds” that seek payment from energy producers for spewing planet-warming emissions.
In the government’s Friday brief to the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, Adam Gustafson, principal deputy assistant attorney general for DOJ’s environment division, said the endangerment finding rollback “changes nothing” about the federal government’s case against the Green Mountain State.
