Repeal of Key Emissions Enforcement Tool Draws Democratic Ire

Democrats Thursday decried the Trump administration’s move to repeal an Obama-era finding that the Environmental Protection Agency has used for nearly 20 years to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The move “ignores scientific and common-sense observations to serve big political donors,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a joint statement. “This shameful abdication—an economic, moral, and political failure—will harm Americans’ health, homes, and economic well-being.”

The 2009 scientific “endangerment finding” provided the legal basis for the EPA to regulate harmful emissions, including from vehicles, to ...