'We're going backwards': Conservationist says Trump's rollbacks threaten climate change progress

For more than 15 years, American environmental policy has been guided by a pivotal declaration by the EPA.

In 2009, the agency announced the so-called “endangerment finding,” which stated that the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare.

Among other things, the finding mandated the EPA to take action under the Clean Air act to curb emissions and take a variety of other actions in an attempt to prevent the long-term dangers of climate change.

But, earlier this year, President Donald Trump’s new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, said, "I’ve been told the endangerment finding is considered the holy grail of the climate change religion. For me, the U.S. Constitution and the laws of this nation will be strictly interpreted and followed. No exceptions. Today, the 'Green New Scam' ends."

Equating the endangerment finding with religion is, needless to say, quite a shift, and Zeldin’s statement was followed by a raft of policy rollbacks that threaten decades of climate-related work.

But it’s also not the first time a Republican administration has targeted environmental policies — so how does this moment compare to the efforts of previous presidents?

Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon chapter, joined The Show to discuss.

Amber Victoria Singer/KJZZ

Full conversation

SAM DINGMAN: Sandy, good morning.

SANDY BAHR: Good morning.

DINGMAN: Sandy, you have been doing this work for decades, right?

BAHR: Correct, yes.

DINGMAN: So how would you characterize this moment in terms of the threat to climate change related initiatives?

BAHR: This administration is truly the biggest threat we have seen to progress on addressing climate change. We've, you know, we've seen some hits before, but this is an all-out assault on provisions that have been in place for a while that help us to reduce emissions and address the climate crisis, and they're hitting it at every level.

DINGMAN: So one thing I sort of alluded to there in the intro is the executive orders that were announced in conjunction with administrator Zeldin's statement. I believe there were, what was it, 31 executive orders and other changes that day.

BAHR: Yes, administrator Zeldin announced that there were 31 rollbacks that they were going to address, including the endangerment finding. And the thing about the endangerment finding, well, first of all, it is based on science and there was a lot that went into it before it was established, it was upheld by the US Supreme Court, and from it, all of the authority that EPA has to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, carbon, methane, that all comes from that endangerment finding per the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Air Act is still the law of the land as far as our air quality. So the fact that they're saying they want to reverse it, that's, that's huge, and, and we think inconsistent with the law.

DINGMAN: OK. Well, so let's talk about this variety of rollbacks that were announced and in some cases implemented back in January. What are the ones that have taken effect so far, that for you are the most significant?

BAHR: Yeah, it's hard to pick but right now they are in the middle of repealing the carbon rule to limit carbon emissions from power plants. That's something that will affect us here directly in Arizona. There's a public comment session next week, but that's moving forward. Very quickly the executive orders reversing any kind of focus on environmental justice or climate justice, eliminating programs that benefit a variety of people with low incomes and on tribal nations. And really, overall, just taking a sledgehammer to our protections and to our climate policies.

DINGMAN: You mentioned obviously the impacts here in Arizona of things like the changes to plant regulations. How much leeway, theoretically speaking, would Governor Hobbs and the state Legislature have to intervene if there were ways in which they wanted to counteract changes that are being made at the federal level.

BAHR: Well, very little when it comes to the emissions part of it because the Legislature, a previous Legislature passed and then Governor Brewer at the time signed a bill that says that the Department of Environmental Quality can't do anything to measure or reduce greenhouse gas emissions unless the Legislature specifically tells it it can, so they really can't do anything specifically on the emissions end.

They can continue with implementing some of the clean energy programs that are in place through the Office of Resiliency. But that's only as long as they have any funding to do so.

DINGMAN: How much were environmental concerns part of the recent legislative session?

BAHR: Well, there were a lot of bad environmental bills, so it was a big part of it as far as there were a lot of bills to try and advantage, gas and coal, to the detriment of solar and wind and clean energy overall. Most of those did die, because the governor vetoed them or they, some of them died in the Legislature, but one bill the governor signed. And that will result in a coal plant staying open longer, so we're very disappointed in that part. So it was a real loss this session as far as climate and clean energy.

DINGMAN: Just about 30 seconds left here, Sandy. Looking ahead, how optimistic are you that a future administration would be able to make up for the loss of progress on environmental issues?

BAHR: Well, I always remain optimistic about people coming through and recognizing the harm. The big problem is it takes a lot longer to build than to destroy, and they're destroying a lot of policies right now. So I'm concerned about the timeline because we need to be acting now on climate reducing those emissions, implementing these policies, and we're going backwards.