National Academy of Sciences rebuffs Trump EPA's effort to undo regulations fighting climate change

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Evidence that climate change harms public health is “beyond scientific dispute,” the independent National Academy of Sciences said Wednesday in a report responding to Trump administration efforts to revoke a landmark 2009 U.S. government finding declaring climate change a threat.

The NAS, a non-governmental nonprofit set up to advise the government on science, said human activity is releasing greenhouse gases that are warming the planet, increasing extreme temperatures and changing the oceans, all dangerous developments for the health and welfare of the United States public. Evidence to that effect has only grown stronger since 2009, the group said.

In July, the Trump administration proposed revoking what's known as the “endangerment” finding, the concept that climate change is a threat. The finding underpins many environmental regulations adopted in the U.S. and overturning it could pave the way for cutting a range of rules that limit pollution from cars, power plants and other sources.

“EPA’s 2009 finding that the human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence,” the NAS said. Science that was uncertain or tentative in 2009 has now been resolved, it said, and new risks have been found, too.

“The importance of getting the science right weighed heavily on the committee’s deliberations, given the potential significant implications of a changing climate and of the actions proposed to address it,” committee chair and former Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman wrote in the report’s preface.

“Unlike earthquakes and volcanoes, over which we have no control, responding to the potential harm to human health and welfare from changes in the climate is actionable now,” Tilghman wrote.

Under President Donald Trump, the Department of Energy has suggested that climate models used by scientists to predict warming have overreached, that long-term trends for disasters generally don’t show much change and that climate has little impact on the economy. The DOE also said there are advantages to a world with more carbon, like increased plant growth.

In a statement, EPA said the endangerment finding was used by the Obama and Biden administrations to justify “trillions of dollars of greenhouse gas regulations” and that many of the “extremely pessimistic predictions and assumptions EPA relied upon have not materialized as expected.”

The Trump administration's work has already been met by strong pushback from the scientific community, including dozens of experts who responded to a survey from The Associated Press. The vast majority of respondents were highly critical of science the administration put forward as it argued to revoke the endangerment finding. Many described it as filled with errors, bias and distortion.

Other mainstream groups, including the American Meteorological Society, have also criticized the administration’s work. A group of 85 climate experts found it “full of errors, and not fit to inform policy making.” Environmental groups are already challenging the administration’s documents in court.

A White House spokesperson previously told The Associated Press that the Trump administration “is producing Gold Standard Science research driven by verifiable data” and that the endangerment finding had long been misused to justify expensive regulations “that have jeopardized our economic and national security.”

The Trump administration maintains that while climate change is real, its future effects are unclear and likely weaker than projected by many mainstream scientists. The administration also contends that U.S. cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, which largely come from burning fuels like oil and coal, would mean little globally.

The authors of the Department of Energy report said in August that any errors found in the work would be corrected and that the report is not meant to be a comprehensive review of climate science. They said the report was intended to focus on topics that have been “underreported or overlooked in media and political discussions.”

The National Academy of Sciences said in its report released Wednesday that harm to Americans from climate change is real. People are exposed to more extreme heat, air pollution and extreme weather events, just to name a sampling of the threats, NAS said. And it said the science of climate change reveals the potential for a frightening future.

“The United States faces a future in which climate-induced harm continues to worsen and today's extremes become tomorrow's norms,” the NAS said.

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