A look at false claims made by the Trump administration as it revokes a key scientific finding

President Donald Trump on Thursday revoked the 2009 endangerment finding, which has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

But in making the announcement, Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin made false claims regarding the government declaration, climate change, and energy.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

___

TRUMP: “Known as the endangerment finding, this determination had no basis in fact, had none whatsoever, and it had no basis in law.”

THE FACTS: This is false. The endangerment finding was adopted in 2009 by the EPA after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases are air pollutants that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

“The idea that the endangerment finding has no basis in law is ludicrous,” said Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA specifically directed the Environmental Protection Agency to determine whether greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The endangerment finding is the result.”

Scientific evidence to support the endangerment finding was provided by the EPA at the time of its inception and is still available on the agency’s website today.

Related Stories

What to know about EPA decision to revoke a scientific finding that helped fight climate change

Trump's EPA revokes scientific finding that underpinned US fight against climate change

Trump EPA set to repeal scientific finding that serves as basis for US climate change policy

Multiple federal courts have upheld the endangerment finding since it was adopted 16 years ago. ___

TRUMP: “We’ve basically stopped all windmills in this country. It’s the most expensive energy you can get.”

THE FACTS: Onshore wind is one of the cheapest sources of electricity generation, with new wind farms expected to produce around $30 per megawatt hour, according to July estimates from the Energy Information Administration.

This compares to a new natural gas plant, around $65 per megawatt hour, or a new advanced nuclear reactor, which runs over $80. Offshore wind is among the sources of new power generation that will cost the most to build and operate, at $88 per megawatt hour, the EIA said in July.

___ TRUMP, asked about the cost to health and the environment: “It has nothing to do with public health. This is all a scam, a giant scam. This was a rip off of the country by Obama and Biden, and let’s say Obama started it and got it rolling and a terrible rip off.”

THE FACTS: Thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies connect health harms to climate change. They find increasing deaths from heat waves, extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods and air pollution from worsening wildfires. A 2021 study in Nature Climate Change calculated that globally about 9,700 people die a year from heat-related deaths attributable to human-caused climate change, based on data from 732 cities, including more than 200 in the United States.

A separate study last year listed dozens of climate change health harms and concluded, using the EPA’s own calculation method, that the health costs are at least $10 billion a year, probably much more.

The science of climate change dates back nearly 170 years to studies done by American Eunice Foote showing that carbon dioxide heated cylinders with thermometers inside more than ambient air. The first national climate assessment, done in 2000, before Obama and Biden, “concluded that climate variability and change are likely to increase morbidity and mortality risks.”

___

ZELDIN: “The Obama and Biden administrations used the endangerment finding to steamroll into existence a left-wing wish, including electric vehicle mandates.”

THE FACTS: Trump has made this claim before. There was no federal mandate to force the purchase of EVs.

“If you looked at some of the tables that were in the Biden rules, you could see that there were a variety of different ways that companies could comply with the standards,” said Carrie Jenks, the executive director of Harvard Law School’s environmental and energy law program. “The endangerment finding nor the regulations mandated a shift from one type of vehicle to another.”

Former President Joe Biden did set up a non-binding goal that EVs make up half of new cars sold by 2030. Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office revoking that goal.

Biden’s policies tightened restrictions on pollution from gas-powered cars and trucks in an effort to encourage Americans to buy EVs and car companies to shift from gas-powered vehicles to electric cars. ___

Associated Press writers Seth Borenstein and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.