News leaked Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency was working to abandon its fundamental basis for fighting climate change. According to several unnamed sources, the E.P.A. is attacking the few remaining rules on legal grounds, claiming that there was no formal justification for tailpipe and factory emissions and other existing anti-greenhouse gas policies. The underlying policy change was in the works for some time. In fact, since taking office, President Trump has halted nearly all other federal policies for curbing greenhouse gases from oil, gas, and coal. Mr. Zeldin and his allies intend to claim that climate regulations pose a threat to human health because they would lead to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers, according to anonymous sources cited by The New York Times this week.
Long Island’s own Mr. Zeldin is at the head of the Washington mob jumping right off the cliff of reason. Human-driven climate change is settled science, whether they like it or not — and the implications are devastating. For example, predictions are that our area could have sea level rise of about a foot by 2050. This would have dire consequences for Mr. Zeldin’s former congressional district as billions of dollars in property are subsumed. For the local governments of the East End, sea level rise will require unprecedented spending to relocate roads and other infrastructure. Climate shifts have already increased fire danger, flooding, and the spread of invasive and pest species.
Mr. Zeldin and the “Project 2025” thinkers behind the Trump administration’s rollback of key federal functions have made no secret of their intention to gut climate policy. By rejecting the legal basis for climate regulation, Mr. Zeldin’s E.P.A. would throw the question back to Congress, whose slim Republican majority has shown no stomach for bucking the Trump administration’s priorities. Though the timing of the climate leak could be part of the effort to get the public to look away from the Epstein matter, the policy change itself is of great significance both here on the East End — and globally.