The Trump administration is undermining EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Air Act

Months after announcing the move, the Trump administration today officially rescinded the EPA’s 2009 “hazard finding,” which found that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane pose a threat to human health and well-being.

This finding has so far supported the agency’s regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Currently, the new rule applies only to car and truck tailpipe emissions, but it is expected to be the first of several similar changes to federal air pollution regulations.

Before a hazard can be completely rescinded, the EPA must go through a lengthy process. It took two years to arrive at the original conclusion.

The move by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin will slow the decline in emissions by about 10%, according to Axios. That’s a lot of money, but it’s not enough to reverse the trend, partly because cheap renewables have dominated new electricity generation capacity in recent years.

“This action will only lead to more pollution, leading to higher costs and real damage to American families,” Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, told TechCrunch in a statement.

Unrelenting climate change is expected to raise death rates by about 2% in the United States, and could reduce global gross domestic product by 17% by 2050, or about $38 trillion.