Daily Herald opinion: Karma and EPA policy: Local weather conditions add worrisome irony to proposed regulation rollback

If there’s any truth to a claim that the United States is on the brink of bankruptcy, which do you suppose is the more likely cause — tax cuts for the wealthy or environmental regulations affecting automobile manufacturers and other industries?

According to the head of the agency charged with protecting the nation’s environment, it appears to be the latter. So, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin exulted last week in a proposal to rescind a 2009 declaration that greenhouse gases are endangering public health and welfare.

The EPA’s “Endangerment Finding” strengthened the agency’s hand to establish under the Clean Air Act climate regulations for motor vehicles, power plants and other sources of pollution. Repealing it, Zeldin rejoiced, “will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America.”

“There are people,” he said, “who, in the name of climate change, are willing to bankrupt the country. They created this endangerment finding, and then they are able to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary sources, to basically regulate out of existence, in many cases, a lot of segments of our economy. And it cost Americans a lot of money.”

Let’s first acknowledge that American car companies, airplane manufacturers and airlines, power companies and more seem nowhere near the point of going out of business. Then, let’s remember that, in any case, it’s not Zeldin’s job to worry about them. It is, or ought to be, his job to ensure that the best science is used to identify environmental hazards to public health and promote guidelines to eliminate or control them.

Instead, antithetically to his agency’s mission, he proposed rollback or repeal of 31 environmental rules — including the 2009 finding — for managing clean air, clean water and climate change.

For Chicagoans, Zeldin’s announcement preceded experiences with almost karmic undertones.

Using data from the PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Washington Post reported this week that 18 Eastern and Midwestern states, Illinois among them, endured the highest July humidity on record, contributing in some cases to heat indexes as high as 128 degrees in Missouri. In another eight states, July humidity this year was the second or third highest they had ever felt.

And, for a while on Thursday, an international monitoring company found the Chicago area wheezing through the worst air quality in the world, a distinction the region has held before.

“The air quality is officially dangerous in Chicago,” said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs at the Chicago-based Respiratory Health Association.

Granted, the distinction was temporary and exacerbated by wildfires raging in Canada. But the situation, the wildfires and the humidity records all reflect conditions scientists have long predicted would become more commonplace as climate change intensifies across the planet.

So, it is more than a little discouraging to hear the person chiefly responsible for protecting us from “officially dangerous” circumstances cheering the removal of potential safeguards.

Christy Goldfuss, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said as much in response to Zeldin’s announcement.

“As Americans reel from deadly floods and heat waves, the Trump administration is trying to argue that the emissions turbocharging these disasters are not a threat. It boggles the mind and endangers the nation’s safety and welfare,” she complained.

If America is indeed on the path to bankruptcy, economic repercussions from environmental regulations could not be ruled out as a factor, of course. But neither could such repercussions from military spending, tax cuts, aid to schools or any other expense. Using that arguable connection to a questionable conclusion in order to justify making our nation and our world less livable is something to condemn, not celebrate.

Fortunately, Zeldin’s proposal must go through a lengthy process of review and public hearings. Let’s hope that somewhere during this period, individuals with more interest in the conditions under which we and our children and grandchildren live will emerge to protect the nation’s environmental policy from the people currently overseeing it.