In 2010, Rolling Stone criticized President Barack Obama for “leading from behind” on climate change after his comprehensive energy bill died, with the administration admitting it lacked the votes to pass it.
“Instead of taking the fight to big polluters,” the magazine declared, “President Obama has put global warming on the back burner.”
Rolling Stone didn’t seem to realize that Obama’s administration had already pulled off the biggest “climate” coup in US history. The previous year, in what became known as the Endangerment Finding, the Environmental Protection Agency declared that “greenhouse gases” pose a threat to public health and welfare and therefore fall within the agency’s regulatory authority under the Clean Air Act.
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The EPA’s definition of “greenhouse gases” included carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) — emissions produced by mammals — yet neither appears in the original Clean Air Act or its 1970 amendments, which form today’s regulatory framework. With a stroke of a pen, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson simply classified them as pollutants, meaning that exhaling or passing gas was, in effect, polluting.
To some, this might sound humorous, but to others, especially those who see climate change as an apocalypse, it’s no laughing matter. Columbia University magazine recently argued that farm animal burps are fueling global warming, which is why some today argue humans must drastically rethink food production to save the planet.
Many people, however, are skeptical that government-led efforts to ramp back carbon dioxide emissions will create a better world, including the Trump administration.
Earlier this month, the EPA announced it was scrapping the Endangerment Finding.
“The Endangerment Finding has been the source of 16 years of consumer choice restrictions and trillions of dollars in hidden costs for Americans,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
By rescinding the finding, the Trump administration eliminated the legal foundation the federal government relies on to regulate greenhouse gases.
While those who see climate change as a dire threat to humanity will hear Zeldin’s announcement as unwelcome news, the action was appropriate for several reasons.
First, simply declaring something an emergency does not justify extra-constitutional action. The Supreme Court made this clear in 2022 when it struck down the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which had cited its regulatory authority over greenhouse gases to pass a sweeping federal plan — including cap-and-trade, something Congress had rejected multiple times. By putting the EPA in check, the Court reminded Americans that there are constitutional limits to executive power — much like it did in a recent ruling on tariffs.
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Second, classifying CO₂ as a pollutant is dubious, even if it were technically constitutional under the sweeping language of the Clean Air Act. Unlike the Act’s original “criteria pollutants,” which are directly harmful at ambient levels, carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring gas essential for life and photosynthesis.
Finally, treating CO₂ as a pollutant is a highly questionable public policy, as it largely ignores the economic tradeoffs of emission restrictions. In its race to net zero, many EU nations have pivoted toward alternative energies. This has reduced CO₂ emissions, but at great cost. Europeans are now paying two to four times more for electricity than Americans, thanks to rushed transitions to renewable fuels, heavy subsidies for wind and solar, fossil-fuel taxes, and the early shutdown of coal plants. Germany’s households pay 2.6 times the U.S. rate, and the U.K. industrial sector pays 4.2 times more than that of the U.S.
Europe’s war on farming and industry has curbed CO₂ emissions, but China is heading in the opposite direction. And it’s far from clear that the continent’s decision to treat CO₂ as a pollutant is anything other than economic suicide — one that will do little to save the planet.
There’s a saying in economics: what gets measured, gets managed. By labeling CO₂ a pollutant, the Endangerment Finding effectively made it a target for regulation, shifting policy decisions, energy markets, and economic priorities toward cutting emissions — with little thought of costs or tradeoffs.
As Matt Ridley recently pointed out, there’s nothing especially “scientific” in this approach: it rests on the idea that a child in Africa might die of heat stroke in 50 years from carbon dioxide-induced warming — while ignoring that the same CO₂ helps prevent starvation today.
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Many argue that climate change is too big an emergency to ignore, just as President Donald Trump argued that trade deficits justified unilateral executive action on tariffs. But as F.A. Hayek warned, “‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.”
Declaring something a “crisis” helps justify federal action, but it often comes at the cost of freedom, economic stability, and common sense.
