How Trumps EPA revolution will make California more affordable

On Thursday, President Donald Trump saved California’s economy. Someone forgot to tell Gov.Gavin Newsom.Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formally initiated the process of rescinding the 2009 “endangerment finding” — the Obama-era determination that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were threat to public health and welfare.That single bureaucratic declaration became the legal foundation for nearly every major federal climate regulation imposed over the past decade and a half.Now the administration is moving to dismantle it.Environmental groups are already preparing lawsuits.But make no mistake: This is the opening shot in the most significant climate rollback in modern history.Trump called the finding “a disastrous Obama-era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers,” predicting they would save “trillions of dollars” as a result of Thursday’s action.EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin didn’t hedge.He called it the largest deregulatory action in American history and framed it as a dagger to the heart of what he described as the “climate-change religion.”The EPA released an economic report supporting its findings, which touts, among other savings, a $2,400 reduction in individual vehicle costs per year.This, of course, has sent climate change fanatics into hysterics — starting with former President Obama himself, who took to Elon Musk’s X to say, “…we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change — all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money.”Obama’s response also reminded us: The original endangerment rule was Obama’s autocratic decree.Congress never passed a sweeping climate law.

One dubious administrative interpretation of the Clean Air Act — a statute written to combat smog — became Obama’s pretext for an economy-wide carbon regime.That’s governance by decree.From that interpretation flowed vehicle...