Climate

Feb. 10 (UPI) — Officials for the Environmental Protection Agency said they are working to end a 2009 declaration that says climate change is a danger to public health.

During the weekend, EPA officials submitted to the Office of Management and Budget a proposed rule revoking the 2009 endangerment finding that guided U.S. climate and greenhouse gas regulations.

The EPA did not say when the endangerment finding officially would be revoked, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested it would happen this week.

“This week at the White House, President [Donald] Trump will be taking the most significant deregulatory actions in history to further unleash American energy dominance and drive down costs,” Leavitt said in a prepared statement.

Revoking the endangerment finding removes the EPA’s statutory authority to regulate motor vehicle emissions that was provided via Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act of 1970, an EPA spokesperson told The Hill.

The endangerment finding is “one of the most damaging decisions in modern history,” the Leavitt said.

The Clean Air Act forces the EPA to regulate vehicle emissions that produce any pollutant that are reasonably thought to pose a danger to public health or welfare.

A 2007 Supreme Court ruling determined that greenhouse gas emissions that are thought to contribute to global warming meet the standard for air pollutants that require regulation due to their potential for harming public health.

The Obama administration in 2009 issued the endangerment finding for greenhouse gas emissions, which the prior Supreme Court ruling said requires the EPA to regulate them.

The EPA that year decided that greenhouse gas emissions likely would cause widespread “serious adverse health effects in large-population areas” due to increased ambient ozone over many areas of the United States.

“The impact on mortality and morbidity associated with increases in average temperatures, which increase the likelihood of heat waves, also provides support for a public health endangerment finding,” the EPA said in its endangerment finding.

“The evidence concerning how human-induced climate change may alter extreme weather events also clearly supports a finding of endangerment,” the EPA said, while acknowledging that the conclusion was based on “consensus.”

The finding said carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are fueling storms, drought, heat waves, wildfires and rising seas, which pose a threat to public health.

Because the finding determined emissions from the burning of coal, gas and oil were said to contribute to climate change, the EPA undertook regulations of power plants, vehicles and other sources of greenhouse gas emissions, including gas stoves, ovens, water heaters and heating systems.

Revoking the endangerment finding ends those regulations, which could be reversed if a future administration reinstates the finding.

Leonardo is the latest in a series of half a dozen storms to batter the Iberian Peninsula this year.

A man has lost his life in Portugal after floodwaters engulfed his car, and in Spain, a girl has been reported missing after being swept away by a river as Storm Leonardo has battered the Iberian Peninsula with torrential rain and gale-force winds.

Leonardo is the latest in a wave of half a dozen storms to sweep across Portugal and Spain this year, causing several fatalities, destroying infrastructure and leaving thousands of homes without power.

Portuguese authorities confirmed on Wednesday that a 70-year-old man died in the southern region of Alentejo after floodwaters swept his vehicle off a road near a dam.

In southern Spain’s Malaga province, a girl remains missing after she was dragged away by the Turvilla River in Sayalonga while trying to rescue her dog. The animal reportedly managed to reach safety, and emergency teams resumed the search for the girl at first light on Thursday, according to local and national news reports.

“We spent the whole afternoon and night yesterday searching in the river from the place where the girl fell in until the very end of the river. We found the dog, but not her,” Malaga fire chief Manuel Marmolejo said on Spanish television on Thursday.

Spain’s State Meteorological Agency has warned that Storm Marta, the next front in the ongoing “storm train”, is expected to reach the region this weekend.

Portuguese Economy Minister Manuel Castro Almeida stated that reconstruction efforts after Storm Kristin alone may exceed 4 billion euros ($4.7bn).

In Alcacer do Sal in southern Portugal, residents were forced to wade through waist-deep water after the Sado River breached its banks following a series of storms. Restaurant terraces were submerged, and shopkeepers and homeowners used stacked sandbags in an attempt to protect their properties from the rising floodwaters.

“I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s surreal,” resident Maria Cadacha told the Reuters news agency. “There are a lot of people here, very good people, many shopkeepers, homes with damage. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.”

Andalusia’s emergency services reported attending to more than a million incidents by midnight on Wednesday.

Antonio Sanz, head of the regional government’s interior department, confirmed that 14 rivers and 10 dams were at “extreme” risk of overflowing due to the severe conditions.

In Portugal, the National Civil Protection authority registered at least 70 incidents by early Thursday as the region continued to monitor the impact of the storm.

Christophe Dubi, the IOC executive director for the Olympic Games, added: “We make a point to receive those petitions, and we have to recognise climate is a challenge for all of us.

“What we have to do as an organisation is to be at the forefront of sustainability, and our principles are very clear.”

One area the IOC is aiming to make the Olympics more sustainable is having Games take place over a wider area with more pre-existing facilities, and Coventry said Milan-Cortina is an acid test for whether this is a viable future.

Milan-Cortina takes place in three hubs spread across northern Italy – in Milan, Cortina and Livigno – with only two newly built sporting facilities: the Santagiulia ice hockey arena and Cortina Sliding Centre.

The next two Winter Olympics – French Alps 2030 and Utah 2034 – will also have sports spread more widely, while the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane is will have venues across Queensland.

This has caused issues however, with Brisbane organisers saying, external they will go beyond the originally stated budget of $4.9bn (£3.6bn).

“We are really experiencing a spread out Games here for the first time – we are going to learn a lot,” Coventry said.

“We have taken this decision for sustainability reasons, climate and not having to have new venues. We are seeing there is an impact on National Olympic Committees because of the spreadness [sic], also for broadcast and media, making it harder to get around.

“What is really cool is that you get to see iconic venues in beautiful places – but now we have to weigh this up, the balance between a spread games for sustainability reasons but not shifting complexity and sustainability to different areas.”

While the action got underway on Wednesday with the start of the curling events, the 2026 Winter Olympics will officially start with the opening ceremony on Friday.

Coventry said she hoped all nations would be treated with respect by spectators, including the USA team amid criticism from Italian authorities about the presence of ICE agents in Milan.

“I hope the opening ceremony is seen by everyone as a chance to be respectful,” she said.

“For me, when we went to the Olympic village that is the best reminder of how the Games should be. I hope the opening ceremony will do that.”

The schism between Democratic environmental ideals and California voters’ anxiety about affordability, notably gas prices, were on full display during an environmental policy forum among some of the state’s top Democratic candidates for governor on Wednesday.

The Democrats questioned the economic impact Californians could face because of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s goal to have the state transition to zero-emission vehicles, a policy that would ban the sale of new gas-powered cars and trucks by 2035. The Trump administration has attempted to negate the policy by canceling federal tax credits for the purchase of such vehicles along with invalidating California’s strict emission standards.

“It’s absolutely true that it’s not affordable today for many people to choose” an electric vehicle, said former Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine. “It’s the fact that, particularly with expiring federal subsidies and the cuts that [President] Trump has made, an electric vehicle often costs $8,000 or $10,000 more. If we want people to choose EVs, we have to close that gap.”

Both Porter and rival Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who served as Health and Human Services secretary under former President Biden, said that as governor they would focus on making low-emission vehicles more affordable and practical. Porter said the cost of buying a zero-emission car needs to be comparable with those that run on gas, and Becerra said California needs to have enough charging stations so drivers “don’t have to worry can they get to their destination.”

“We know our future is in clean energy and in making our environment as clean as possible,” Becerra said. “We’ve got to make it affordable for families.”

Porter and Becerra joined two other Democrats in the 2026 California governor’s race — former hedge fund founder turned environmental advocate Tom Steyer and Rep. Eric Swalwell of Dublin — at the Pasadena event hosted by California Environmental Voters, UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, the Climate Center Action Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund. The Democrats largely agreed about issues such as combating climate change, accelerating the transition to clean energy and protecting California’s water resources.

The coalition invited the six candidates with greatest support in recent public opinion polls. Republicans Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff, and Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, did not respond to an invitation to participate in the forum, which was moderated by Sammy Roth, the writer of Climate-Colored Goggles on Substack, and Louise Bedsworth, executive director of the UC Berkeley center.

Newsom, who has acknowledged that he is considering a run for president in 2028, is serving the final year of his second term as governor and is barred from running again.

The state’s high cost of living, including high gas prices, continues to be a political vulnerability for Democrats who support California’s progressive environmental agenda.

In another controversial issue facing the state, most of the Democratic candidates on Wednesday distanced themselves from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta tunnel, a massive and controversial proposal to move water to Southern California and the Central Valley. Though it has seen various iterations, the concept dates back to Gov. Jerry Brown’s first foray as California governor more than four decades ago.

Despite Newsom’s efforts to fast-track the project, it has been stalled by environmental reviews and lawsuits. It hit another legal hurdle this month when a state appeals court rejected the state’s plan to finance the 45-mile tunnel.

Swalwell, Porter and Steyer argued that there are faster and less expensive ways to collect and deliver water to thirsty parts of California.

“We have to move much faster than the Delta tunnel could ever move in terms of solving our water problems,” Steyer said, adding that data and technology could be deployed to more efficiently deliver water to farms.

Swalwell said he does not support the project “as it’s designed now” and proposed covering “400 miles of aqueducts” with solar panels.

During Wednesday’s forum, Becerra also committed a gaffe as he discussed rooftop solar programs for Californians with a word that some consider a slur about Jewish people.

“We need to go after the shysters,” Becerra said. “We know that there are people who go out there to swindle families as they talk about rooftop solar, so we have to make sure that that doesn’t happen so they get the benefit of solar.”

The term is not viewed as derogatory as other antisemitic slurs and was routinely used in past decades, a spokesperson for the Becerra campaign noted after the event.

“Secretary Becerra never knew this word to be offensive and certainly he meant no disrespect to anyone,” said a campaign spokesperson. “He was talking about protecting the hardest-working and lowest-paid Californians who are often taken advantage of by unscrupulous actors.”

At least 80 people, including 19 members of an elite marine force, are missing and feared buried in a landslide in Indonesia’s West Bandung. The death toll has risen to 17. A massive search operation is underway including thousands of rescue workers.