Environmental advocates in Grand Rapids are asking the public to speak out against a federal effort to rescind Obama-era findings on carbon emissions.
The “endangerment finding” concludes that vehicle emissions are threatening public health and welfare by adding to greenhouse gas emissions. It created a legal path for passing new emissions standards and other regulations.
State Representative Kristian Grant (D-Grand Rapids) said the endangerment rule has helped policymakers at all levels respond to threats of air pollution.
“Usually, a community doesn’t need a finding from the EPA to say, ‘Hey, something’s wrong. But it allows an opportunity to validate that to pinpoint what the issues are so communities and states can take action,” Grant said after a press conference Thursday outside a waste incinerator in Grand Rapids.
Because so many emissions regulations are based on the endangerment finding, environmentalists worry protections could go out the window if the finding were to go away.
Grand Rapids City Commissioner Marshall Kilgore said it’s wrong to pull back from environmental protection, especially as his city is ramping up its efforts.
“Our constituents gave us a huge thumbs up with passing the climate action adaptation plan, lowering our carbon emissions, just trying to fight for environmental justice. And to then see the endangerment finding rescinded is such a smack in the face,” Kilgore said.
The Environmental Protection Agency is leading the effort to rescind the endangerment finding. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the Obama Administration went too far when it issued the 2009 conclusions.
“[M]any stakeholders have told me that the Obama and Biden EPAs twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year,” Zeldin said last month during an announcement of the plan to rescind the endangerment finding.
Zeldin argues deregulation would save Americans a collective $54 billion each year. His department is proposing getting rid of greenhouse gas emissions standards for “light-, medium-, and heavy-duty highway vehicles.”
Over 99.9% of peer-reviewed studies have confirmed the existence of human-made climate change, according to an analysis in the Environmental Resource Letters journal. Meanwhile, researchers have linked air pollution to various health conditions like asthma, cancer, and heart disease.
In Grand Rapids, advocates say Black, Brown, and poorer communities feel the burden of pollution.
Maps from the Centers for Disease, Control, and Prevention show higher levels of asthma throughout Grand Rapids, including majority Black and Latino neighborhoods surrounding the incinerator where Thursday’s press conference was held.
Cases of COPD, another breathing condition, were also more highly concentrated in Census tracts for low-income communities nearby.
Kareem Scales works on environmental justice for the NAACP Grand Rapids chapter. Scales acknowledged getting the Trump Administration to change its mind will require allies beyond the areas hardest hit by air pollution.
“Although Black and Brown communities and other poor communities will be hit first, those communities are next in line. And so, for folks to understand that this is a human rights issue and that all of us will be impacted, I think is a good way,” Scales said.
The EPA is accepting public comment through September 22.
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