EPA Climate Rollbacks: When Politics Buries Science, The Public Pays
Senator Mitch McConnell recently brushed off backlash from Republicans' Medicaid cuts, telling his colleagues that constituents would 'get over it.' The recently passed 'One Big Beautiful Bill' could strip health benefits from up to 17 million Americans—no small thing to 'get over.'
But another Trump administration effort stands to harm the health of America's entire population – all 347 million Americans – and their future children and grandchildren. The administration has to proposed to revoke the two foundational pillars of United States climate policy: the Endangerment Finding, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's scientific determination that climate pollution endangers public health and welfare, and the Clean Car and Truck Standards, which will cut air pollution from transportation while saving American consumers hundreds of billions in fuel costs.
Does the administration expect the entire nation to 'get over' that too? I fear most Americans don't fully understand the consequences of those two pillars being torn down.
Science and Law Under Attack
I served in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for over three decades, beginning in the Reagan administration. Despite ideological shifts, one principle endured: policy was grounded in science and the law. That principal is now at grave risk.
The Endangerment Finding emerged from the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which ruled that greenhouse gases are 'air pollutants' and that the EPA must regulate them if they endanger public health or the environment. After an exhaustive, peer-reviewed scientific process, EPA confirmed that danger in its 2009 Endangerment Finding. Every legal challenge to this finding has failed—including rulings by the D.C. Circuit Court in 2012 and 2023.
EPA Administrator Zeldin now questions the science behind the Endangerment Finding and wants to revoke it. To revoke it, the EPA would need to provide new scientific evidence showing greenhouse gas pollution is not a danger. No such evidence exists. In fact, the science has only grown stronger.
The United States is warming faster than the global average. Climate-linked disasters have become more frequent, more severe, and more expensive—hurricanes that wipe out towns in North Carolina, floods that kill hundreds in Texas, wildfires that turn homes into ashes. The cumulative cost of these escalating disasters since 1980 is a staggering $2.9 trillion. Americans are paying dearly—through higher insurance premiums, damaged infrastructure, destroyed communities, and the nearly 17,000 lives lost.
The Clean Car Success Story at Risk
I led the team that developed the EPA's first national vehicle greenhouse gas standards in 2010. I stood at the White House, as the auto manufacturers that my office worked hand in hand with, joined President Obama to support these rules. It was unprecedented: An entire industry agreed that policies to clean our air could drive innovation, create jobs, and save consumers money.
The results speak for themselves. The most recent Clean Car and Truck Standards finalized under President Biden is estimated to deliver net benefits up to $1.6 trillion, prevent up to 2,500 premature deaths per year, and save consumers an average of $6,000 in fuel and maintenance costs per vehicle.
These savings far outweigh any increase in upfront vehicle costs—at roughly a 4-to-1 benefit-to-cost ratio. The standards, combined with the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress in 2022, have created over 200,000 new jobs and spurred ~$130 billion in new US investments in electric vehicle(EV) and battery manufacturing in the past five years.
Administrator Zeldin claim that these standards amount to a hidden tax for US families. That is false. It is repealing these standards that will burden Americans—with higher fuel bills, rising insurance costs, dirty air, and climate-driven economic shocks. Without these rules, we'll burn many more gallons of oil, and cost the consumer as much as $890 billion more at the pump.
While U.S. retreats, China and Europe are racing ahead. China already dominates the global EV market, accounting for over 60% and is expanding exports to key markets, including Europe, South America, and Mexico. The European Union continues tightening vehicle standards with EVs now accounting for 23% of new car sales compared to just 11% in the U.S.
We're walking away from a global clean transportation market close to $10 trillion in 2025. Repealing these standards doesn't just raise emissions and fuel costs—it also cedes American leadership in a critical 21st-century industry.
Real-World Consequences
Rolling back these protections will have devastating human and economic costs. There will be more childhood asthma attacks, more heart disease, and more lives lost too early. Instead of providing economic relief, repeals would force American families to not only pay a hidden tax in higher fuel costs, but also in higher health costs, prohibitive insurance premiums, and expensive disaster-related expenses.
IRA repeal alone could cost up to 130,000 net direct jobs across the U.S. EV industry by 2030, with potentially 440,000 total jobs lost when considering indirect effects. The automotive sector has invested hundreds of billions in U.S. engineering and manufacturing based on current policies – those investments are now largely in jeopardy. Without stable rules, American workers will be left behind, while competitors like China and the EU surge ahead.
And perhaps most dangerously, repealing science-based policy on the grounds of unfounded legal claims and mischaracterized science sends a chilling message: that political expedience now overrides public health, environmental protection, and legal precedent.
America Can't Afford to Walk Away
The EPA's mission has not wavered since its founding 55 years ago: to protect public health and the environment. Its own analysis shows that the policies now under threat deliver hundreds of billions in net benefits and position the U.S. for long-term leadership.
The science is clear. The legal foundation is sound. And the economic evidence is overwhelming. Repealing the Endangerment Finding and the Clean Car and Truck Standards would be more than regulatory backsliding—it would be a fundamental betrayal of the agency's duty to the American people.
No, we can't 'get over' this action. Because our children deserve clean air, our workers deserve 21st-century jobs, and our planet can't afford anything less than American leadership.
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The following is the transcript of an interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Aug. 3, 2025. MARGARET BRENNAN: Change is coming for the country's Medicaid system as part of the enactment of the Big, Beautiful Bill. To help us understand what's ahead, we turn now to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Good morning. Welcome to Face The Nation. DR. MEHMET OZ: Thank you. MARGARET BRENNAN: You've got a lot of work ahead. I want to start on drug costs. The president put this 25% tariff on India, big drug producer. The President's trade deal with the EU puts a 15 percent tariff on imported medicines from Europe. How do you stop the drug makers from passing along those costs to people on Medicare and Medicaid? DR. MEHMET OZ: Well, the president's letter on Thursday for most favored nation pricing is a good example of that, and he's been working on this tirelessly since the first administration. And just to put this in context for many of the viewers, about two thirds of bankruptcies in America are caused by health care expenses. About a third of people when they go to the pharmacy, they leave empty handed. They can't afford the medication. So the President has said, Enough global freeloading. We've been covering much of the development costs for new drugs to cure cancer, deal with lots of other illnesses that are life threatening. It is in time for the American public to understand that we should not be paying three times more for the exact same medication in the same box, made in the same factories. The president's saying, equalize it out. Let's use a model that's worked, for example, for external threats, that's what NATO did. Everyone has to pay a little more. We'll pay extra too, but we won't pay a lot more than everybody else, so they actually have to raise their contributions, in this case, to an internal threat, which is illness. We'll pay a little less than America that way more Americans can afford these medications, and it's a fair system for the entire globe. MARGARET BRENNAN: So this was declared in these letters that were sent out to 17 pharmaceutical companies this past week, and it calls for extending that to Medicaid drug prices. Is that intended to offset what will be, you know, cuts to Medicaid? And do you know, you know, if the companies are actually going to follow through on this, like, how do you actually strong arm them into doing it? DR. OZ: Well just get the numbers correct. We're putting 200 billion more dollars into Medicaid. So we're actually investing— MARGARET BRENNAN: —by the time when costs are going up, so. DR. OZ: Costs are going up, but there's been a 50 percent increase in the cost of Medicaid over the last five years. So I'm trying to save this beautiful program, this noble effort, to help folks giving them a hand up. And as you probably gather, if Medicaid isn't able to take care of the people for whom it was designed, the young children, the dawn of their life, those are the twilight of their life, the seniors and those who are disabled living in the shadows, as Hubert Humphrey said, then we're not satisfying the fundamental obligation of a moral government. And this President has said over and over that he believes that it is the wise thing and the noble thing to help those who are vulnerable and every great society does that, we're going to as well. So we're going to invest in Medicaid as is required, but we want an appropriate return on that investment. One thing that Medicaid patients should not face are drug prices they can't afford. MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, how do you enforce this? Pharmaceutical companies— DR. OZ: Well, the pharmaceutical companies, if you sit them down quietly, Margaret, and we've done that, and say you went into this business at some point, because you cared about people. I know there's many out there shaking their heads, but that is actually the truth. People go into health care, whether they're pharmaceutical companies or insurance companies or the PBMs or anybody in the space. Even at the CMS, the most impressive thing to me in my new task, and the President has appointed me to, is the remarkable quality of people within the organization, just unbelievably talented. They went into this job because they care about health care and about people. Somewhere along the lines, people forget. They put numbers ahead of patients. And when that happens, then you start running into problems. We went to the pharmaceutical companies and we said, you appreciate this is not a fair system. We should not be paying more in America, three times more, for your products than you charge in Europe. They get the joke. They understand the reality of this problem. They are engaging with us. We're in the middle of those negotiations. The President has a unique power to convene. We've done it with dealing with prior authorization, this heinous process where patients feel like they're trying to get care from a doctor. Everything's being done except all of a sudden the arm of insurance comes in and stops the whole process for unknown reasons for weeks, sometimes months. The insurance companies, representing 80 percent of the American public, got together and they said, because we pushed them, we're going to deal with this. We can do the same, I believe, with the pharmaceutical industry, with most favored nation pricing. MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me ask you about the changes that are coming because of this new law to Medicaid, which is jointly administered between the feds and the states. There are major reduction- reductions to federal health care spending here, one of the changes are these work requirements. It's about 20 hours a week, volunteer or work to qualify for health care. What is the guidance you are giving to states on how to implement this? Because in this economy, things are more complicated. Uber driver, independent contractor, how do they show they work their 20 hours a week? DR. OZ: Last weekend, I was at the National Governors Association with Secretary Kennedy, who has been a big advocate of work as well. Every Democratic president and Republican president has said that the foundation of a healthy welfare system of a social system of support is work. MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, but I'm asking how you actually implement that and register it so that people who are working do qualify, and they don't get caught up in paperwork because they didn't file something on time. DR. OZ: As long as we're okay that people should work and would want to work, and it's not just work, it's community engagement. They can go get educated, right? They can take care of family members. They can contribute in other ways, but work is a great way of doing and get you out of poverty if you can find jobs and elevate yourself. There have been efforts to do this in the past, but they haven't been able to achieve what we can achieve, because we have technologies now. And we've invested already, as soon as the bill was signed, began pilots to try to demonstrate that we can actually do this correctly. We have pilots now in Louisiana and in Arizona, in both cases, within seven minutes, you can click on where you're working. You mentioned Uber, you're an Uber driver. You click that button on your phone. It just takes you to your payroll provider. Let's say it's ADP. 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Georgia had a program only for people under the poverty level, and for those people, if they wanted, they could elect to come into a system to help them get jobs. There have been 50,000 reduction in head count of uninsured people in the overall program in the last five years. Overall, Georgia, 2 million less uninsured people. So Georgia is using a lot of tactics, and they're going in the right direction. I would argue that if you have confidence in the American people and their desire to take to offer to try to get a job, if we challenge you to that. And remember, if you're an able-bodied person on Medicaid, you're spending 6.1 hours watching television or leisure time, so you don't want that— MARGARET BRENNAN: —Well, KFF Health Policy found 92 percent of adult Medicaid recipients already are working. Or they have the carve out because they have to have caregivers, or they have to do other things. DR. OZ: They're fine. All they have to do is there'll be a simple app. If you've already carved out, that's super simple. If you're supposed to be if you're able-bodied and supposed to be working, we want to help connect you to the job market and get you into work. We have twice as many jobs available in America as people who seem to want them. The foundation of work is not just about fulfilling eligibility. The goal of health care insurance is to catalyze action in the right direction, to get you healthier, to give you agency over your future, so you recognize you matter, and you should have a job, therefore to go out and change the world. MARGARET BRENNAN: So there's a drug addiction problem in this country. How are those changes going to impact people who are on Medicaid in states like Kentucky, in states like West Virginia? DR. OZ: In many instances, there are carve outs for folks who have substance use disorder problems. There are programs-- MARGARET BRENNAN: —How do they prove that? 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If the whole challenge to a work requirement is that you don't have confidence in our ability to accomplish it, that's a separate question, because I do have confidence in the American people, and we have confidence we can pull this off. Look at the passport system, Margaret. Right now, you can go and get a passport in two weeks without having to go to the post office, send pictures, and all that's gone. It's fixable. Let's use technology. MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm still confused on how someone who is in the throes of substance abuse is going to use an app to say, I'm in the throes of substance abuse every week, to file on online— DR. OZ: —When they go in to get their help for their substance abuse treatment, assuming they're going for help on that, they can also get enrolled in, in those requirements, can be fulfilled. We want to talk to them in as many ways as possible. 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The money is designed to help you with workforce development, right sizing the system and using technology to provide things like telehealth that can change the world. Imagine if we can change the way we think about the delivery of health and make it more about getting people healthy so they can thrive and flourish and be fully present in their own lives and as Americans. MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr Oz, we'll leave it there. We'll be back in a moment.
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The following is the transcript of an interview with Dominic LeBlanc, Canadian Minister for U.S.-Canada Trade, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Aug. 3, 2025. MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to the Canadian Minister for U.S.-Canada trade, Dominic LeBlanc, who joins us this morning from Moncton, Canada. Good morning to you. MIN. LEBLANC: Good morning, Ms. Brennan. MARGARET BRENNAN: You were just here, in Washington, negotiating. And while the talks are officially continuing, you left town without a deal, and you left town with, now, what is a 35% tariff on goods. How much of a setback was the President's decision to do that while you are still at the table? MIN. LEBLANC: So we were obviously—obviously disappointed by that decision. We believe there's a great deal of common ground between the United States and Canada in terms of building two strong economies that work well together. That's been the history of the 40-year Free Trade Agreement that goes back to President Reagan. We were pleased the United States is respecting the terms of the USMCA agreement. That's vital, we think, to the cost of living and affordability, certainly in the United States, it's true in Canada, as well. So, we're going to continue to do the work. We left, always, with a better understanding of the American concerns in the trading relationship. Ambassador Greer, Secretary Lutnick, engaged with us in constructive, cordial conversations. So we're prepared to stick around and do the work needed. We think, Ms. Brennan, that the economies of both countries are strengthened when we do things together, the trading relationship between Canada and the United States is unlike other partners. One description, without which I thought was very apt; we don't sell things to each other as much as we build things together. And that's why it's- it's difficult in this relationship when so much is integrated. But we remain very optimistic. MARGARET BRENNAN: But, you heard Ambassador Greer say Canada—because Canada retaliated to the initial tariffs all the way back in April, when Prime Minister Trudeau was in office, you're paying the price now, even though you have a new government in place. If that's the issue, why not make that concession and pull back? MIN. LEBLANC: So, Prime Minister Carney, our new prime minister, has, we think, built a very business-like, respectful relationship with President Trump. We think that's obviously very important to Canada, and we think to the United States. We're dealing with, take, for example, the steel sector in Canada. It's a strategic importance to national security in Canada, as it is for President Trump and the American economy. We now have a situation where there's a 50% tariff. We're the biggest steel export market for the United States. We have a 25% tariff. There's a 50% tariff when we want to sell something into the United States. So, effectively, we're blocked from doing that. But the national security interest of Canada requires that we have a viable steel and aluminum sector, and my conversations with Secretary Lutnick and others are that therein lies an example, where if we do the right work together, we have, Ms. Brennan, the toughest rules of any country dealing with Chinese dumping into Canada. We have melt and pour tracing, so that products coming from other countries with Chinese steel can't be dumped into the Canadian market. So, we're looking and advancing ideas where we can do that work with the United States, at the same time, ensuring that our economy continues to have sectors vital to the economic future of Canada. But, that's not in contradiction to President Trump's national security objectives in the United States, of course. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I want to talk to you more about this idea of the so-called fortress North America to take on China, and some of the specifics of the dispute on the other side of this commercial break. Please stay with us. We'll have more questions for Minister LeBlanc shortly. We'll you see in a moment. ((COMMERCIAL BREAK)) MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face the Nation. We return to our conversation with the Canadian Minister for US-Canada trade, Dominic LeBlanc. Minister, we were just talking about some of the sectoral tariffs, the metals. American automakers, GM, Ford, Stellantis, they have all said that these tariffs are hurting their profits. The 50% metal tariffs, which use Canadian aluminum, the Secretary of the Treasury was talking about those just the other day, they're seeing the impact here in the United States, a bit of a backfire in some ways. Do you see room for maneuver on these? Are they willing to negotiate with you on those tariffs? MIN. LEBLANC: Ms. Brennan, we hope so. And, as I say, we're encouraged by the conversations with Secretary Lutnick and Ambassador Greer, but we're not yet where we need to go to get the deal that's in the best interest of the two economies. But your example is a good one. Canadian aluminum companies massively supply the American market. And by putting a 50% tariff on aluminum from Canada, you've increased the price of a whole series of goods. The automobile sector, again, is an example where there's been deep integration. We're the biggest customer of U.S. made automobiles. Heavily, heavily importing into Canada light and heavy-duty trucks. 50% of the cars that we finish in Canada and sell to the United States are made up of American parts. So, therein lies a perfect example where, instead of tariffing one another, or President Trump for his national security reasons, under his Section 232, tariffs, wants to have a strong domestic steel, aluminum automobile sector. Well, so does Canada. And we understand and respect totally the President's view in terms of the national security interest. In fact, we share it, and what we've said to our American counterparts is, how can we structure the right agreement, where we can both continue to supply one another in a reliable, cost-effective way that preserves jobs essential to the American economy, but the same thing is true, obviously in Canada as well. MARGARET BRENNAN: Are there any plans for the two leaders to speak? I saw President Trump said your prime minister called him Thursday, and they just never connected. I mean, are tensions that high? And given the changing justification for the tariffs, do you really feel like you're negotiating with the other side in good faith? MIN. LEBLANC: Sure, we do. Of course we do. As I say, the conversations have been informative, constructive, and cordial. I would expect the Prime Minister will have a conversation with the President over the next number of days. That's certainly my plan, again with Secretary Lutnick, recognizing that we think there is an option of striking a deal that will bring down some of these tariffs, provide greater certainty to investment. We, Ms. Brennan, we passed, in Canada, our version of the President's One Big, Beautiful Bill. It's called the One Canadian Economy Act, which we think will unlock up to $500 billion of investment in Canada for things like pipelines, port infrastructure, mines, all of which offer huge opportunities to American businesses as well. So, we think there's a great deal- a great deal to work on together. MARGARET BRENNAN: All right, Minister, we'll see if you can get one. We'll be right back.
