Industry reaction to EPA’s plan to repeal the endangerment finding and greenhouse gas vehicle rules spans from concerned to enthusiastic.
Comments posted to the draft rule’s docket by the Monday deadline show that respondents from the fossil fuels and auto industries are virtually unanimous in applauding EPA for rolling back the Biden-era standards for cars and trucks. But many of them also hinted at concerns that EPA’s bid to undo the keystone scientific finding could trigger legal problems and a more uncertain business environment. Still, some also expressed confidence that an endangerment finding repeal wouldn’t expose polluters to a storm of lawsuits that the Clean Air Act had shielded them from.
EPA had uploaded 864 comments on the rulemaking as of Wednesday afternoon, but the regulatory portal showed it received nearly 322,000. The comment deadline came as the agency is moving swiftly to undo the vehicle rules and the endangerment finding, which supports climate regulations for a host of economic sectors. Internal documents shared with POLITICO’s E&E News this week showed that EPA plans to complete work on the final rule by mid-November and publish it a month later.
Trump administration leaders are set to make important decisions about the final rule this week and next — before the agency has time to digest many of the comments it collected ahead of Monday’s deadline.
