Federal policies to restore air quality and curb climate change could soon be reversed.
A Trump administration proposal would overturn the landmark rule that’s become the foundation for many regulations aimed at lowering fossil fuel emissions.
An Environmental Protection Agency finding in 2009 officially stated that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare. That meant the EPA could introduce regulations to limit pollution from sources that produce those gases, such as gasoline vehicles and coal power plants, through the Clean Air Act.
The proposal seeks to undo that policy, arguing that federal mandates to lower emissions — not the emissions themselves — are the real threat to Americans’ livelihoods.
The evidence about fossil fuels’ negative climate impacts hasn’t disappeared in the past 16 years, though, said Stanford University scientist Noah Diffenbaugh.
“The research was strong at the time of the endangerment finding, and has only become more strong and more definitive in the intervening years,” he said.
Diffenbaugh, a professor at the Doerr School of Sustainability, warned that removing rules that cut emissions would likely lead to increasing impacts from global warming, which has already supercharged extreme heat and drought in Utah. Major weather disasters also add up, costing the U.S. more than $182 billion in 2024 alone.
Failing to address the factors fueling those impacts hurts everyone, said Utah environmental advocate Steve Erickson.
“It just delays any further work on ending climate change or reversing it,” he said, “which is counterproductive for all life on the planet.”
Without federal rules to lower emissions, he said, Utah’s roads may have fewer electric vehicles and more conventional gas engines in the years ahead, potentially worsening local air quality during a winter inversion. It’s essentially an atmospheric lid on the Salt Lake Valley that keeps the emissions produced by cars and other pollutants from escaping.
“It should be a concern for all folks who are in urban areas here, in particular, on the Wasatch Front,” Erickson said.
The EPA proposal still has to go through more steps to be approved. The public comment period ends Sept. 15, and it will likely face legal challenges.
If some federal emissions rules end up going away, regulations would be left up to individual states. That puts pressure on local leaders to figure out what this means for their area, said Derek Monson, chief growth officer at the Sutherland Institute, a conservative think-tank in Salt Lake City.
“In some states, I imagine they will step up and kind of replicate what the EPA just rescinded to kind of bolster what they think is the right direction,” Monsoon said. “In other states, they won't, because they are celebrating this decision.”
Utah leaders have long pushed back against EPA mandates and environmental regulations.
State leaders sued in 2023 over the “Good Neighbor Rule” that targets ozone pollution emitted across state lines, arguing it could close power plants and increase energy costs.
In 2024, Gov. Spencer Cox described the EPA’s ozone rules as “so stringent” that it would be “impossible” for Utah to comply. Later that year, the Legislature passed a law intended to allow the state to say no to any federal regulations it doesn’t agree with.
Still, state leaders might consider replacing some rules that disappear, Monson said.
“It's very possible that some businesses, some political leaders have come to view certain aspects of those [EPA] rules as being beneficial,” he said.
The state could decide it wants to retain some of the regulations and implement its versions of them through the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
“What it might look like is, ‘Hey, we can do this better than the federal government has been doing it. … So, we're going to keep the good and get rid of the bad,’” Monson said. “I could see some things like that playing out here in Utah on a case-by-case basis.”
In the end, he said, that approach could have some benefits. Separating local environmental issues that have more bipartisan support, such as protecting the Great Salt Lake and improving air quality, from polarized national politics could allow for more productive discussions.
