The Environmental Protection Agency has moved to dismantle regulations on planet-warming emissions, effectively clearing the path for increased capital accumulation for fossil fuel interests by eliminating standards for vehicles and potentially broader controls on power plants and oil and gas facilities. This action reverses a 17-year-old scientific conclusion that greenhouse gases pose a public health risk, directly benefiting industrial polluters.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin delivered the keynote address at a conference hosted by the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that rejects mainstream climate science. Zeldin told climate change skeptics to “celebrate vindication,” framing the repeal as a reversal of decades of policy influenced by "liberal politicians and environmental groups."
Deregulating for Capital
The EPA’s repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding removes the central basis for regulating planet-warming emissions from power plants, vehicles, and other sources. This scientific conclusion had for 17 years provided the legal foundation for federal climate rules.
The repeal eliminates all greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks.
Experts warn that this move could unleash a broader undoing of climate regulations on stationary sources such as power plants and oil and gas facilities.
The Trump administration explicitly argued that the finding “hurts industry and the economy,” framing public health protections as impediments to profit.
The Heartland Institute, which describes itself as a “free-market think tank,” states a key goal is to “challenge the narrative that the world faces a climate crisis” driven by the burning of fossil fuels.
The organization does not disclose its funder list but has received financial support from oil and gas interests, directly benefiting from such deregulation.
James Taylor, the group’s president, hailed Zeldin’s speech and called him “the greatest EPA administrator ever” for these actions.
The State's Service to Industry
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York, stated the repeal “reversed decades of unthinking adherence to liberal politicians and environmental groups about the dangers of climate change.”
The EPA, under the current administration, has rolled back dozens of air and water protections.
The agency has also claimed it does not have legal authority to regulate climate change, effectively abdicating its role in protecting the public from industrial pollution.
An EPA spokeswoman, Carolyn Holran, reinforced this stance, stating that “the era of EPA as a vehicle for radical ideology is over.” Holran added that Zeldin has returned the agency’s focus to fulfill its statutory obligations to protect human health and the environment, “backed by gold standard science, not doomsday models designed to scare the public into compliance.” This frames public health advocacy as "radical ideology" and justifies the state's service to capital.
Managing Contradictions
Environmentalists denounced Zeldin’s appearance, accusing him of “rallying climate deniers” at a time when climate change is creating greater risks of extreme weather, including stronger hurricanes, more dangerous floods, and more intense wildfires.
Joe Bonfiglio, U.S. director of the Environmental Defense Fund, called Zeldin’s speech “disinformation” and accused him of “doing the bidding of Heartland’s secretive donors,” highlighting the opaque funding of organizations that serve capital.
Bonfiglio also described the speech as “tone-deaf and even insulting to Americans,” citing rising costs of gasoline and other energy, and recent extreme weather events such as a “gigantic heat dome that baked the Southwest last month and smashed March heat records in 14 states.” These are direct costs borne by the working class and economically dispossessed.
Legal challenges have been filed by nearly two dozen states, along with cities and public health and environmental groups, seeking to reverse the repeal through existing legal channels. These actions operate within the state apparatus, attempting to mitigate the effects of deregulation rather than challenging the underlying system that enables such reversals for profit.