Arizona is one of more than two dozen states, counties and cities suing the Trump administration for rescinding the endangerment finding, the key scientific basis that allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to put limits on carbon pollution.
The Trump administration in February said that eliminating the endangerment finding would reduce regulations and lower energy costs.
“This decisive action dismantles the flawed 2009 determination that Democrats weaponized to justify over $1.3 trillion in burdensome regulations on American families, businesses, and consumers,” a White House press release said.
Arizona and the other states and cities on Thursday filed a petition for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review the EPA’s action.
The petitioners argue the U.S. Supreme Court gave the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that endanger public health. They say the Trump administration’s attempt to roll back regulations ignores decades of scientific research confirming the reality and severity of climate change.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes noted hundreds of Arizonans die each year because of heat exposure and said human-caused carbon pollution is driving even more extreme temperatures in the state.
“On the day we file this lawsuit, much of Arizona is under an extreme heat warning due to an unprecedented early heat wave that has spiked temperatures over 20 degrees above normal,” Mayes said in a press release. “The decision by the Trump administration to rescind the Endangerment Finding will only accelerate climate change. Putting the profits of the fossil fuel industry over the future of our planet is a failure of historic proportions and we will fight it with every tool we have.”
The American Public Health Association, American Lung Association and several environmental groups have already filed a separate lawsuit in response to the EPA’s rescission of the endangerment finding.
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The town of Cave Creek in Arizona is on the front lines of the Colorado River crisis. It will get help from Phoenix before working on long-term fixes. -
In March, the Trump administration finalized a plan to expand private livestock grazing on national forests and across other public lands. -
The plan would consolidate research leadership — currently dispersed across the country — in Fort Collins, Colo., while closing laboratories in Montana, Utah and Nevada. -
Mexican gray wolves are one of the smallest wolf species in the world and among the most endangered. The animal’s habitat once spanned the mountains of central Mexico, up to southeastern Arizona, southern New Mexico and southwest Texas.
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Winter in Phoenix never looks like a snow playground. But that’s why so many of us head north up the I-17 to Flagstaff when the weather turns cold for some skiing, snow shoeing or sledding.
