It's gone. Just like that. As of Thursday, February
12th, 2026, the legal bedrock that has supported,
well, essentially every major climate action
in the United States for the last 17 years has
been revoked. And we really need to be clear
about what we mean by bedrock. Right. And I want
to be clear right off the top here. We aren't
talking about a single rule regarding fuel efficiency.
for a sedan. We aren't talking about a specific
tax on light bulbs or a subsidy for solar panels.
No, this is much bigger. We are talking about
the foundation. We are talking about the endangerment
finding. It's the scientific determination that
greenhouse gases actually threaten public health.
It is the trigger that allows the government
to do anything at all about climate change. And
the administration has just pulled that trigger
mechanism right out of the gun. It's a profound
change. The president and the administrator of
the EPA, Lee Zeldin, are calling this the largest
deregulatory action in American history. That's
the phrase they're using. They're framing it
as a total liberation of the economy. But there
is a massive amount of detail to unpack here.
I mean, we have to look at the legal arguments,
the health fallout and this this very strange
economic paradox where regulations are disappearing,
but your utility bills are actually skyrocketing.
It is a chaotic moment and the implications are
going to be felt everywhere from the courtrooms
to the emergency rooms. Welcome to Meteorology
Matters, the podcast that dives deep into the
science, chaos and stories behind the weather
that shapes our world. This show was created
by meteorologist Rob Jones. Now let's get into
today's episode of Meteorology Matters. This
is a heavy one. We need to start by really, really
deeply understanding what just happened on Thursday.
Right. Let's strip away the political jargon
for a second. The endangerment finding. It sounds
like the title of a suspense movie or maybe a
thriller novel. It does have that ring to it.
But it's actually a specific document from 2009.
So why was this thing so important that removing
it is considered a historic event? Why is this
the bedrock? OK, so think of the endangerment
finding as a kind of a medical diagnosis for
the atmosphere. A diagnosis, I like that. Back
in 2009, the EPA didn't just guess. They didn't
just wake up one morning and decide they wanted
to regulate something new. They looked at over
200 pages of peer -reviewed scientific evidence.
They analyzed the chemistry. They analyzed the
physics. They looked at all the public health
data that was available at the time. And based
on all of that, they made a formal legal determination.
So this is a rigorous checkup. not just a quick
glance. The most rigorous checkup possible under
the law. And the conclusion was that greenhouse
gases, we're talking specifically about carbon
dioxide, methane, a few others, that they accumulate
in the atmosphere and threaten the public health
and welfare of current and future generations.
So it was the official government acknowledgement
written down that, yes, this stuff is bad for
us. Exactly. And legally, that diagnosis is what
authorized the cure. or at least the treatment.
This is the crucial part to understand about
the Clean Air Act. The way that law is written,
once the EPA determines something is a pollutant
that endangers people, they are required by law
to regulate it. They don't have a choice. They
don't have a choice. It's a mandate. That finding
was the legal foundation for everything, for
limiting emissions from cars, from power plants,
from oil and gas wells. Without the finding,
the EPA literally does not have the authority
to act on greenhouse gases. So by revoking the
finding, they aren't just rolling back a specific
law. They are saying, legally speaking, the patient
isn't sick anymore. Or maybe more accurately,
they're saying the diagnosis was wrong from the
start. They are scrubbing the medical chart.
The president explicitly called the original
finding a radical rule and the basis for a green
new scam. So you can see this isn't just a policy
shift. It is a complete rejection of the scientific
consensus that established the risk in the first
place. And the person leading the charge here
is Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the EPA.
He stood there on Thursday and said this move
drives a dagger. through the heart of the previous
climate agenda. Which is a fascinating choice
of words, isn't it? A dagger through the heart.
And honestly, it is a fascinating turn of events
for Zeldin personally. I know he's been in politics
for a while, but was he always on the side of
the issue? I mean, this feels pretty extreme.
Well, no. And that's what's so interesting. If
you look back at his time in Congress when he
was representing Long Island from 2019 to 2023,
the record is actually quite different. He was
a member of the Climate Solutions Caucus. I've
heard of that. That's a bipartisan group, right?
Republicans and Democrats trying to find common
ground. Exactly. It's supposed to be the place
for moderates to work on these issues. And even
more specifically, the voting record shows he
specifically voted against amendments that would
have blocked the EPA from using this very endangerment
finding. Wait, wait. So you're saying he voted
to protect this finding before he decided to
drive a dagger through its heart? The records
certainly suggest that. It's a clear reversal.
The shift really became apparent when he ran
for governor of New York in 2022. During that
campaign, he pivoted hard. He started talking
about accelerating natural gas drilling. And
now, as the head of the very agency he once voted
to empower on this issue, he's executing a maneuver
that he once opposed. It really highlights how
the political winds have shifted the regulatory
landscape. It's a complete 180 -degree turn.
So let's talk about the justification here. They
can't just say, we don't like it. Administratively,
they have to give a reason, a legal rationale.
They do. And the administration is throwing out
some huge numbers regarding the economy. They
are. The headline number is that this revocation
will save the American auto industry and other
businesses an estimated $1 .3 trillion. That
is a number with a T? Trillion. Where's that
math coming from? Because that sounds like a
number you just pull it out of a hat. That's
the big question, isn't it? They haven't actually
released the breakdown of that $1 .3 trillion
figure. So no one's seen the worksheet? No. It's
a headline number. It's very effective for a
press release. But the general argument is that
by removing the requirement for auto manufacturers
to meet strict emission standards and by removing
the limits on power plants, you dramatically
lower the cost of doing business. You remove
the red tape, as they always call it. OK, so
that's the economic pitch. But there is also
a legal argument they're using. It's not just
about the money. They're trying to redefine how
the Clean Air Act works entirely. Yes. And this
is where it gets a little technical, but it's
incredibly important for understanding the future
of environmental law in this country. Lay it
on us. The administration is arguing that the
Clean Air Act was only ever meant to cover direct
harm near the source of the pollution. Direct
harm. OK, unpack that for me. What does that
mean in practice? Think about the classic pollutants.
Think about soot. or smog, or lead particles
from gasoline back in the day. Things you can
see and smell. Right. You have a factory, smoke
comes out of a smokestack, and the people living
right next door get sick, they cough, their kids
get asthma. That is direct, local harm. The pollution
is right there, and the victim is right there.
OK, that makes sense for old school pollution.
Yeah. Like the London fog or smog in Los Angeles
in the 70s. You could see it. You could smell
it. And if you move 10 miles away, you were basically
fine. Exactly. But greenhouse gases don't work
like that. Carbon dioxide doesn't just hang around
the tailpipe of your car. No, it goes everywhere.
It mixes globally. It creates a blanket effect
around the entire planet. It doesn't matter if
the CO2 comes from a tailpipe in Detroit or a
factory in Beijing or a massive bushfire in Australia.
It all goes into the same global atmosphere and
traps heat everywhere. And the administration
is saying that because it mixes globally, the
EPA shouldn't regulate it. Is that the argument?
Precisely. They are arguing that because the
damage isn't strictly local or near the source,
it falls outside the scope of what the EPA was
built to do. It is a very, very narrow interpretation
of the law, one that seems designed specifically
to exclude climate change from federal oversight.
It effectively creates a loophole the size of
the atmosphere itself. That's a good way to put
it. It's like saying If I poison the town well,
it's not a crime because I didn't personally
hand a cup of water to the specific person who
drank it. But looking at the research we have,
this isn't just a dry legal maneuver. It feels
like an ideological declaration. I mean, the
president referred to climate scientists as stupid
people and reiterated the idea that this is all
a hoax. And that is the core of it. We're now
seeing a government policy that is directly at
odds with the conclusions of the vast, vast majority
of global scientists. It's a stance that says
fundamentally, we dispute the physics. Right.
And that brings us to the health reality, because
you can repeal a law, but as we know in meteorology,
you absolutely cannot repeal physics. Let's unpack
that physics and biology aspect, because one
of the arguments we heard this week came from
the Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum. Yes. He
went on TV and made a claim that sounds, well,
on the surface interesting. He said, quote, CO2
was never a pollutant. When we breathe, we emit
CO2. Plants need CO2 to survive and grow. They
thrive with more CO2. Ah, yes. The old CO2 is
plant food argument. It's a classic talking point.
It is. And it sounds intuitive, doesn't it? It
has a kernel of truth that makes it seem plausible.
It does. I mean, is he wrong? I remember photosynthesis
from grade school. Plants do take in carbon dioxide.
It's part of the cycle of life. He isn't wrong
that plants use CO2. That is a basic... biological
fact, but it's a massive logical fallacy to suggest
that because something is natural or even necessary
in small amounts, it must be harmless in massive,
unprecedented amounts. Like water. Right. We
need water to survive, but you can still drown
in it. Exactly. That's the perfect analogy. Or
think about vitamins. You need iron in your blood
to transport oxygen. It's essential. But if you
take an entire bottle of iron supplements, it
becomes toxic and can kill you. The dose makes
the poison. The dose makes the poison. And the
scientific reality, which is backed by that mountain
of research the EPA originally used, is that
the extraordinarily high levels of atmospheric
CO2 we have now are overwhelming the natural
process. It's not just about the plants, it's
about the heat trapping recordism in the atmosphere.
Right, the greenhouse effect. You can have all
the lush plants you want, but if the average
temperature spikes to a point where those plants,
and the people who depend on them, can't survive
the heat waves, the plant food argument falls
apart pretty quickly. It completely ignores the
larger system in which the plants live. So let's
look at what happens when that heat trapping
mechanism gets cranked up. The Environmental
Defense Fund released some data on what this
repeal specifically means for our health over
the next 30 years. And the numbers are, well,
they're grim. They are startling. The projection
is that repealing the endangerment finding will
lead to a 10 % increase in U .S. greenhouse gas
emissions compared to where we would have been.
10%. That's not a small number. Not at all. And
that translates to very real human costs. The
headline number is 58 ,000 additional premature
deaths. 58 ,000. That's the size of a mid -sized
American city just gone. That's a stadium full
of people. And it's not just deaths, it's also
37 million more asthma attacks between now and
2055. And someone with friends who have severe
asthma, that number is... terrifying. Just the
anxiety of not being able to breathe, multiplied
by 37 million instances. That is a lot of suffering.
And we are already seeing the precursors to this
in the data. This isn't all just future projections.
Deaths from extreme heat in the U .S. have already
doubled in recent decades. Doubled. That's in
the data today. That isn't a model. That is a
retrospective look at what's already happened.
And we are seeing the spread of diseases that
we usually associate with the tropics. I saw
that in the notes. Dengue fever. I usually think
of that as something you worry about on a vacation
to the equator, not here in the mainland US.
Yes. And last year, there were nearly 5 ,000
cases of dengue fever in US travelers. That is
a 30 % rise. And here's the mechanism. It's very
simple meteorology. As the climate gets wetter
and warmer, the mosquito season gets longer.
The winters don't get cold enough for long enough
to kill off the larvae. And their habitable range
expands northward. We are effectively creating
a nursery for tropical diseases in the continental
United States. And then there's the smoke. We
have all seen the orange skies in recent years.
It feels like every summer now there's at least
a week where the advice is just don't go outside.
Absolutely. The projections show that wildfire
smoke exposure could kill as many as 70 ,000
Americans annually by 2050. 70 ,000 a year. Every
year. That is a direct consequence of a hotter,
drier climate in the West that is fueling more
intense, larger fires. So when the administration
says they are saving the economy money, the counter
argument is, what is the cost of 70 ,000 deaths
a year? What is the cost of 37 million asthma
attacks in terms of hospital visits and lost
work days? That costs the economy money too,
right? Sick people can't work. That is the fundamental
disconnect. Catherine Hayhoe, who is the chief
scientist at the Nature Conservancy, put out
a statement that really nailed this. What did
she say? She pointed out that the science underpinning
the endangerment finding has only gotten stronger
and more certain since 2009. These aren't just
abstract ideas on a chalkboard. They are real,
documented risks to our infrastructure, our economy,
and our people, all rooted in rigorous peer -reviewed
evidence. She called it the ostrich effect, didn't
she? Essentially, yes. She argues that revoking
the legal finding doesn't change the chemistry
of the atmosphere. It doesn't alter the laws
of physics. It just makes the U .S. like an ostrich
with its head in the sandless, able to see the
disaster coming and, critically, less able to
mitigate the floods, the fires, and the droughts.
We are legally blinding ourselves to a very clear
and present danger. And while we are blinding
ourselves to the danger, we are also being told
that this is all for our benefit, specifically
our wallets. The pocketbook argument. Right.
The administration promised that these deregulations
would slash utility bills. They campaigned on
it. Drill, baby, drill was supposed to mean save,
baby, save for the consumer. But the data tells
a completely different story. And this is where
we get into what you call the economic paradox.
OK, lay it on me. What is happening to our electric
bills? Because I can tell you mine certainly
hasn't gone down. They are going up. Significantly.
Between September 2024 and September 2025, electricity
prices in the U .S. rose 5 .1 percent. 5 .1.
And what was general inflation over that same
period? General inflation was around 3 percent.
So energy costs are outpacing the cost of everything
else. They're rising much faster. And this is
happening while the administration is pushing
for maximum fossil fuel production. So wait a
minute. If we are producing more oil and gas
than ever before in history, basic economic supply
and demand suggest the price should go down.
Why am I paying more to turn on my lights? Two
words. Liquefied natural gas. LNG. LNG. Explain
that connection. How does exporting gas make
my bill go up here at home? It's basic supply
and demand, but on a global scale. In the past,
U .S. natural gas was largely trapped here. It
was cheap for us because we had so much of it
and couldn't easily ship it overseas. It was
a captive market, and American consumers benefited
from that. Right. But now there is a massive
push, championed by the Energy Secretary, Chris
Wright, to build export terminals and ship record
amounts of that gas to Europe and Asia. So we
are putting our cheap gas on these huge tanker
ships and sending it to the highest bidder globally.
Exactly. And when you link the U .S. market to
the global market, our domestic price naturally
rises to meet the higher global price. By exporting
so much of our supply, we are tightening the
domestic supply that's available for Americans.
We're competing with Europe for our own gas.
Precisely. The group Public Citizen analyzed
this and found that U .S. households spent an
extra $12 billion on natural gas because of this
export boom. $12 billion. That's money coming
straight out of American pockets and going onto
those tanker ships. And Secretary Wright is actively
pushing Europe to buy even more. He's asking
them to cut their own methane rules so we can
sell them more gas. It's a policy that is fantastic
for gas producers. It helps their profit margins
immensely, but it directly hurts the American
rate payer. And then there is also this strange
situation with coal. The administration loves
coal. Beautiful clean coal, as the president
calls it. They are fighting tooth and nail to
keep these old plants open. This is another layer
of the cost issue. Many of these coal plants
are aging. They're 50, 60 years old. They're
expensive to maintain. They're expensive to fuel
compared to modern alternatives. But the administration
is trying to force them to stay online. Why?
Well, experts like Ari Pesco from Harvard Law
and the science historian Naomi Oreskes are calling
this blatant cronyism. Because it just doesn't
make economic sense. No, it doesn't. Look at
the numbers. In 2025, 93 percent of all new energy
capacity added to the grid in the United States
was solar, wind, and batteries. 93%. Overwhelmingly.
And why? because they are cheaper. It is simply
cheaper to build and operate a new wind farm
or solar field than it is to keep many of these
old coal plants running. So when the government
forces those plants to stay open, they are effectively
forcing you, the rate payer, to subsidize inefficiency.
It's a transfer of wealth. You pay more on your
bills so that a specific coal plant operator
can stay in business. Naomi Oreskes argues exactly
that. She says it's a direct transfer of money
from rate payers to donors. Speaking of donors...
We have to follow the money here. The research
we looked at mentions a very specific dinner
at Mar -a -Lago. Yes, this was back in April
of 2024. The president hosted a group of oil
and gas CEOs and, according to reports, explicitly
asked for one billion dollars in campaign contributions.
A billion dollars? Yeah. That is a staggering
ass. He's essentially said, give me a billion
dollars and I'll see what I can do for you on
regulations. He didn't get the full billion,
but he did get about $75 million from that sector,
which is still a massive amount of money. And
this included large checks from fracking mogul
Harold Ham and poll CEO Joe Kraft. OK, so let's
connect the dots. Harold Ham, a fracking and
LNG guy, wants to export more natural gas. Joe
Kraft, a coal guy, wants to keep his coal plants
open. They donate millions of dollars. And then
what happens? The administration blocks offshore
wind projects, pushes for more LNG exports, and
creates subsidies to keep old coal plants running.
The correlation is impossible to ignore. Even
if those policies like blocking wind energy or
exporting our natural gas result in higher prices
for the average consumer, they align perfectly
with the business interests of the specific people
who wrote the checks. It's amazing. We're told
wind energy is a scam. Yet the real scam might
be you paying extra on your electricity bill
every month to keep a 50 -year -old coal plant
on life support. That is certainly the argument
being made by critics. And it creates a very
confusing, chaotic landscape for the industry
itself. You might think big business is popping
champagne corks right now because all these regulations
are gone. Right. Hooray. No more red tape. But
it is not that simple. Not at all. Yeah. Let's
talk about that industry reaction, because I
saw something that really surprised me. Tesla
actually wrote to the administration urging them
to keep the endangerment finding. Right. Which
seems counterintuitive until you think about
it. Tesla's entire business model is built on
the transition to electric vehicles. Their position
is that the endangerment finding provided a stable,
predictable regulatory platform. If you're going
to invest billions of dollars in building gigafactories,
you need to know that the government is going
to continue to support that transition. Revoking
the finding pulls the rug out from under them.
It deprives consumers of choice, and it hurts
the economic benefits of the entire EV sector.
So what about the traditional automakers? Ford,
GM, the big guys? They must be happy. They are
in a really tough spot. The Alliance for Automotive
Innovation, which is their main lobbying group,
has been pretty quiet. Why? Because on one hand,
they didn't love the very strict rules the previous
administration put in place. They thought they
were too aggressive. But on the other hand, what
they fear more than anything is the patchwork.
The patchwork. What's that? Imagine if every
state has different rules. If the federal standard
completely disappears, powerful states like California
are going to step in and create their own. And
they have the market power to do that. Exactly.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has already
promised to sue, saying we will see them in court.
If California sets its own strict emissions rules
and then 12 or 13 other states that follow California's
lead adopt them, but Texas and Florida and other
states don't, how do you build a car for that
market? It's logistical nightmare. You have to
manufacture different versions of the same car
depending on which side of a state line it's
going to be sold on. It's chaos. Automakers crave
certainty. A single federal standard, even a
tough one, is often better and more efficient
for them than 50 different standards. And then
there is the oil and gas industry, the American
Petroleum Institute, the API. You would think
they'd be thrilled to have the EPA off their
backs completely. And they are when it comes
to cars. They absolutely want to sell more gasoline.
But surprisingly, Mike Summers, the head of the
API, said they actually want federal regulation
of methane. Wait, the oil guys want to be regulated?
Why? That seems completely counterintuitive.
It's pure strategy. The big players, your ExxonMobiles,
your Chevrons, they have already spent millions,
probably billions of dollars on technology to
stop methane leaks from their wells. They've
already made the investment. They've made the
investment. They want the government to enforce
rules that force all their smaller, cheaper competitors
to spend that money too. It levels the playing
field for them and weeds out the little guys.
That is fascinating. So the big oil companies
want regulation to crush the smaller ones while
the administration is trying to derate. everything
to help, well who exactly? To help the ideology
perhaps or to help the specific donors who haven't
yet made those investments. It creates this chaotic
environment where the industry itself is completely
fractured and sending mixed signals. And meanwhile
the legal warfare is just getting started. You
mentioned California is preparing to sue. Senator
Chuck Schumer said the blast radius of this decision
spans from San Diego to Portland, Maine. And
the legal outlook is very rocky for the administration.
We have to remember the Supreme Court has already
ruled on this. They have. Yes. In the landmark
case Massachusetts VEPA back in 2007, the court
said that the EPA does have the authority under
the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases
if they are found to endanger public health.
So the Supreme Court already gave the green light.
They said, yes, you can do this. They did. And
so revoking the finding now after 17 years of
it being the law of the land is legally tenuous.
It will face immediate and powerful challenges.
Environmental groups like the Natural Resources
Defense Council are already saying the science
and the law are crystal clear. They are confident
they can win in court. But court cases take years.
And in the meantime, the U .S. is stepping back
from the world stage on this issue. And that
is the global context we absolutely cannot ignore.
The U .S. is the second largest polluter right
now, just behind China. But we are by far the
largest historical emitter. Right. We put most
of that carbon up there over the last century.
We did. And now we are the only nation out of
nearly 200 to withdraw from the Paris agreement.
Everyone else is at the table trying to solve
the problem. And we just flipped the table over
and walked out of the room. It sends a powerful
signal. And the clock is ticking. The goal of
the Paris Agreement was to limit global warming
to 1 .5 degrees Celsius above pre -industrial
levels. 1 .5? Scientists now expect that with
current policies globally, we're on track to
hit 2 .6 degrees. That's 4 .7 degrees Fahrenheit.
And for you listening, that difference between
1 .5 and 2 .6 is not small. It is the difference
between manageable change and truly catastrophic,
irreversible tipping points. OK, so let's just
try to sum this all up. We have a repeal of a
scientific truth, the endangerment finding, which
is being done to serve an economic agenda. That's
the claim. But the economic data suggests consumers
are actually paying higher prices for energy
because of policies like LNG exports and coal
cronyism. Meanwhile, The very real health risks,
from heat, from disease, from wildfire smoke,
are skyrocketing. It is a massive contradiction.
We are being told we can't afford to fight climate
change, but the data strongly suggests we are
already paying a premium to ignore it. It really
makes you wonder about the definition of endangerment.
The administration says the EPA can only act
if the danger is near the source. Right, that...
narrow legal argument. But we're talking about
an atmosphere that wraps around the entire planet.
The source of the problem is everywhere. The
damage is everywhere. And so if the federal government
steps back from regulating the very air we all
breathe, based on this idea that damage must
be near the source, what happens when the damage
is, in fact, everywhere? That is the ultimate
question, isn't it? And here's a final thought
for you to chew on. If the endangerment finding
is gone, strictly as a legal document on a piece
of paper. Does that mean the danger itself has
actually vanished? Of course not. Or have we
just destroyed our ability to see it coming?
It feels like tearing down the lighthouse because
you're tired of looking in the rocks. The rocks
are still there. And the ship is still moving
full steam ahead, right into the fog. On that
cheery note, we want to make sure you have the
tools to understand what comes next, to stay
on top of the weather and the science behind
it. Because clearly, The politics of weather
is getting just as stormy as the weather itself.
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