Latest news with #climatepolicy
Forbes
a day ago
- Politics
- Forbes
EPA Climate Rollbacks: When Politics Buries Science, The Public Pays
WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 20: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin testifies ... More before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment in the Rayburn House Office Building on May 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Zeldin testified on the fiscal year 2026 Environmental Protection Agency budget. (Photo by) 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.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Pauline Hanson's urgent wake up call for Anthony Albanese: 'I will not stand by while Australia is driven into the ground'
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson will introduce an urgency motion calling on the government to ditch its 'disastrous' net zero emissions target. Senators are expected to vote on the motion on Monday afternoon, adding pressure to calls from within the Coalition to scrap the policy. Ms Hanson wrote to Senate President Sue Lines on Monday morning, advising of her intention to introduce the motion 'as a matter of urgency.' 'I recently spoke to a small business owner who told me they're paying $10,000 a month just for electricity, on top of rent. It's no wonder 30,000 small businesses have shut their doors in just three years,' she said. 'Net zero is a scam. It's destroying our industries, gutting our manufacturing, crippling farming and food production, driving up the cost of living and pushing families into poverty, homelessness and despair,' she said. 'We are being led by fools. Shame on every politician who continues to push this madness. I will not stand by while Australia is driven into the ground.' While the motion is expected to be defeated, Ms Hanson said it was about forcing Coalition senators onto the record. 'We know where Labor and the Greens stand, but I want to hear where those in the Coalition stand on this,' she said. 'It's an urgency motion and anyone who abstains from this is a coward.' Net zero has emerged as a fracture point within the recently reconstituted Coalition, with Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce teasing a private members bill to do away with it. On Wednesday, The Australian reported Nationals leader Michael McCormack would support Barnaby Joyce's bid, undermining the Coalition's ongoing net zero review. It was a shot across the bow for the senior Coalition partner, signalling to its more moderate members the Nationals were not prepared to retire the issue. Ms Hanson said welcomed the move by the two Nationals MPs, adding her party had known 'all along' that net zero was a 'bad idea'. 'While some National Party members have come to the realisation that net zero has been a bad idea that has hurt productivity, cost of living, and the agriculture sector, we've been saying this all along,' she told the Daily Telegraph. 'Barnaby Joyce to his credit seems to have turned the leaf and recognised that these issues are having an impact and he's attempting to reverse the damage he and his Coalition did in government.' In place of the policy, she wrote the government should 'prioritise providing Australian families, farmers, businesses and industry with cheap and reliable energy.' She said it would help to 'protect jobs, ensure energy security, lower the cost of living and restore Australia's economic competitiveness'. Ms Hanson added Australia's ambitious target of carbon neutrality by 2050 was difficult to square with its relatively minor impact on overall global emissions. 'While China and India are exempt from cutting emissions until 2060 or 2070, and the USA refuses to play ball, we're punishing our own country for contributing just one per cent of global emissions,' she wrote. 'Between them, those three nations emit over 50 per cent but it's Australians who are made to suffer.' According to the CSIRO, Australia contributes just over one per cent of global emissions while China, India and the US comprise a combined 52 per cent.
ABC News
4 days ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Labor and Liberals facing internal fault lines over Gaza, net zero, and Welcomes to Country
It's one of the most enduring political rules — never fight the last election at the next one. But the Liberals are already showing signs of missing this important memo in the new political term. Over the weekend, the WA Liberal Party supported a motion to abandon a target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, heaping more pressure on federal Opposition Leader Sussan Ley to dump the policy. Delegates at the WA Liberal State Council also approved a motion to get rid of the Indigenous and Torres Strait Islands flags behind the prime minister at press conferences and cut back on Welcome to Country ceremonies. It is understood that both motions were carried with an overwhelming show of support when they were read out and without needing to go to a ballot. The behind-closed-doors meeting was held at a hotel in federal MP Andrew Hastie's electorate of Canning, and Hastie, a future leadership contender and rival to current leader Sussan Ley, said the motion was about sending a "clear signal" to Australians. But what is that clear signal? The most obvious signal is that the "sensible centre" Liberal Party that Ley seeks to lead and portray exists as nothing more than an illusion. While Ley sat on the fence on net zero when asked where she stood last week — a dangerous place for any leader to sit — she was positive about the importance of the Welcome to Country ceremony opening the parliament. It puts her at odds with many in her party who want to continue the culture war that derailed the last week of Peter Dutton's campaign. I say derailed because voters were looking for a clear economic narrative and vision from the opposition leader. Instead, they got served more of the same. The fact that these two issues — net zero and Welcome to Country — are becoming the defining fault lines inside the Liberal Party is all the evidence you need that the wars of the past are being fought again, instead of the party engaging with the issues that are defining the future. Labor, for its part, will tackle its level of commitment to Indigenous issues of treaty and truth, and criminal justice when its First Nations caucus meets this week in Canberra. There's a strong feeling in the party that they must not squander the thumping majority they have been delivered, with many believing that advancing Aboriginal rights issues needs to be revisited. A sign of Labor confidence after week one of the 48th parliament is a debate going on about whether the five Labor MPs who have been seated on the opposition benches because the party's numbers are too big have got the rough end of the deal or a sweet blessing. One told me it provides a "fresh perspective" on the house. They are now working on a name for their group of five Labor members. Latest contenders are "the Happy Bench" or "the CrossReds." Either way, it's a good problem to have. The issue many Labor MPs are thinking of as we enter week two of the first sitting fortnight is what more Australia should be doing to denounce the humanitarian horror unfolding in Gaza. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese released a strong statement about the worsening humanitarian crisis, calling on Israel to end its blockade of aid and immediately comply with its obligations under international law. The opposition said the statement was "one-sided" and ignored Hamas's role in blocking aid. But France's plan to recognise Palestinian statehood is changing the direction many think the government needs to take. Former foreign minister Bob Carr and Labor backbencher Ed Husic think it's time to change course. These prominent Labor figures are urging Albanese's government to join French President Emmanuel Macron in recognising a Palestinian state at a United Nations summit in September, in a bid to create momentum for a two-state solution. Yesterday, on Insiders, the PM poured cold water on the prospect of following France. But Labor insiders still hold hope that this position could shift if there is movement from like-minded countries, like the UK, before that September meeting. Albanese told Insiders a decision by the Israeli government to allow some aid into Gaza was "just a start" and more needs to be done. Albanese pointed to images of a starving one-year-old boy, saying, "It breaks your heart". "A one-year-old boy is not a Hamas fighter. The civilian casualties and deaths in Gaza is completely unacceptable. It's completely indefensible. My government has been very consistent in calling for a ceasefire," he said. "We have been consistent in calling out the terrorists in Hamas and saying that the hostages should be released. But we have rules of engagement, and they are there for a reason. They are to stop innocent lives being lost, and that is what we have seen." Albanese said he had been moved by the images of this "innocent young boy". "For anyone with any sense of humanity, you have to be moved by that. And you have to acknowledge that every innocent life matters — whether they be Israeli or Palestinian." The PM said, "we need to move to a longer-term" solution and he called for a two-state solution. Albanese previously said he had spoken to Israeli President Isaac Herzog to tell him Israel was losing support. "What I have said [to him] is that what sometimes friends have to say to their other friends when they are losing support," he said. "Israel is, I think, when you look at internationally, the statements that have been made by, including this week, more than two dozen nations combining to call out the lack of aid being allowed into Gaza, is that they need to recognise — they need to operate within international law. The message is clear: Israel is on notice from its traditional friends. The images of starving children in Gaza have crossed the Rubicon. Australians will not accept this. Patricia Karvelas is host of ABC News Afternoon Briefing at 4pm weekdays on ABC News Channel, co-host of the weekly Party Room podcast with Fran Kelly, and host of politics and news podcast Politics Now.
SBS Australia
23-07-2025
- Politics
- SBS Australia
National Party's push to repeal Australia's net zero target
National Party's push to repeal Australia's net zero target Published 23 July 2025, 8:42 am A fresh push to dump Australia's net-zero targets has been launched from within the Nationals. Both coalition partners have begun meetings to determine a new climate policy, a broadside from the backbench igniting further speculation over the Nationals' leadership.
The Guardian
20-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Nationals' net zero bomb threatens to fracture the Liberals' decades-old alliance
A handful of moderate Liberal MPs decided that enough was enough. As the party debated whether to reunite the Coalition after a brief but damaging split with the Nationals in mid-May, the MPs drew a line in the sand. While the Nationals insisted on four demands for reunification – on nuclear power, supermarket break-up powers, regional communications and a $20bn infrastructure fund – for some Liberals, abandoning policies for net zero carbon emissions by 2050 would be a step too far. MPs who took part in a rush of party room debates in the tumultuous 48 hours point to the intervention of New South Wales moderate Dave Sharma, who insisted the Liberals could never be credible with mainstream voters if they abandoned such a fundamental element of climate policy. Others, including Zoe McKenzie, Maria Kovacic and Andrew Bragg, spoke privately and publicly in favour of holding firm. 'The view was we could not hide from serious climate policies and we could no longer be seen as accepting climate deniers,' one Liberal MP says, speaking anonymously about the closed-door talks. 'The Liberal party moved too far from its core values because we were dictated to by the Nationals. Peter Dutton let it happen and they're trying to do it again now on net zero.' But the agreement between the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, and his Liberal counterpart, Sussan Ley, to rejoin forces, cobbled together 48 hours after the split, did not settle the question of net zero – leaving it as one of the biggest questions facing the Coalition this term. In the final part of a series on the future of the Liberal party, Guardian Australia spoke with insiders about the latest conflict in the Coalition's climate wars, and how it threatens to permanently fracture the decades-old alliance. Opponents of net zero are not wasting any time. The Nationals have launched their own review, led by dogged climate critic Matt Canavan and the party strategist turned senator Ross Cadell. Outspoken former leader Barnaby Joyce has promised a private member's bill to end 'the lunatic crusade' of net zero when parliament returns this week. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email It was Joyce who initially signed the party up in the first place, negotiating with Scott Morrison's Liberals back in 2021 in exchange for an extra spot in cabinet. The Queensland Liberal-National MP Garth Hamilton calls net zero a 'blank cheque' for economic decline, while Andrew Hastie, considered a potential future Liberal leader, says he wants out of the 'straitjacket' plan. One close observer of the Nationals' dynamics says if a vote on net zero took place in Canberra this week, opposition to the policy would be locked in 13 votes to six. That result would be a mirror image of Canavan's leadership challenge to Littleproud in the days after the election, when he ran on an anti-net zero platform. Despite his two-to-one loss, Canavan claims the party's policy review as a win. He argues the Nationals were bullied into signing on five years ago on the basis that it had popular support in the polls. 'This would be the same polling that sent us shockingly astray in the recent election,' Canavan said in May. He did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Colleagues say Canavan shares anti-net zero content in a party chat on the messaging app Signal 'at all hours of the day and night'. There is widespread anger at the Nationals within senior ranks of the Coalition. Liberal MPs – reduced to a rump in metropolitan seats in part because Labor successfully tied them to Joyce and Canavan during successive campaigns – fear another round of the climate wars could kill the party. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is scathing, calling the Coalition 'hopelessly divided' over something the rest of the world agrees on. 'These Coalition parties, the Liberals and Nationals, learned absolutely nothing on 3 May,' he says. In her first press conference as opposition leader, Ley was asked if she was abandoning her support for net zero. A former environment minister, she has previously talked up the economic opportunities of net zero and insisted she wanted to get there 'as quickly as possible'. As leader, she said the Coalition was committed to the renewables transition but stopped short of endorsing net zero, again. 'No policies have been adopted or walked away from at this time,' Ley said. After a historic thumping at the election, few in the Coalition were in good spirits as they trudged back to Canberra to start another term in opposition. After days of threats about breaking up the Coalition, the Nationals, led in part by the Senate leader, Bridget McKenzie, pushed over the precipice. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Bad blood lingered from the high-profile defection of the Country Liberal Northern Territory senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price from the Nationals to the Liberal party room, part of a plan for her to run for the deputy leadership under Angus Taylor. Senior Nationals always expected Price to one day switch to the Liberals and seek a lower house seat in pursuit of her ambition to eventually become prime minister. But the timing and the nature of the political betrayal incensed her former Nationals colleagues, sending them into what one Liberal describes as an 'emotional rage'. Senior Nationals were given roughly an hour's notice before Price issued a statement on the afternoon of 8 May confirming the move to her 'natural home', the Liberal party. Coalition colleagues quickly ascertained the plot had been in the works for weeks, engineered in part by the former prime minister Tony Abbott. Guardian Australia has been told the failed play damaged friendships between Price and McKenzie, who serve in the upper house together, as well as between McKenzie and frontbencher James Paterson. The Nationals have just four senators in the new parliament. Price is a favourite with the section of the Coalition closely tied to Sky News After Dark commentators on News Corp's network. Her high-profile role during the voice to parliament referendum and her no-apologies brand of rightwing politics lights up the Sky audience. One Nationals member says the network's hosts road test attack lines like a political party, sticking with two or three key messages that resonate with their loyal audience. But after two losses to Labor and the messy years of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, some within the Coalition believe Sky is a habit Liberals and Nationals need to kick. Internally, it is viewed as an outlet to speak to other members of parliament and to practise speaking on broadcast TV. Former Abbott strategist Peta Credlin, the network's marquee presenter, has campaigned against net zero and urged the Coalition to move further to the right following one of its worst-ever election defeats. 'The venn diagram of Sky viewers and Nationals opposing net zero is a circle. It is the same people,' a Nationals insider says. The Nationals will thrash out their position on net zero in a meeting of MPs set for the middle of next month. Ley has ordered two reviews for the Liberals – one on the election loss and the other into the party's future, including branch structures and membership base. The election postmortem, led by party elders Pru Goward and Nick Minchin, could speak to the net zero problem, but two diametrically opposed policies from the Liberals and the Nationals will set up an inevitable clash before the next election. The former deputy prime minister Michael McCormack, who insists on speaking to journalists on the record, says the Nationals' original support for net zero came during China's campaign of economic coercion against Australia and amid significant anxiety among exporters. European trade deals required net zero policies to be in place. 'The world is in a very different place now,' McCormack says. 'America has made its view clear, and other countries are following suit. Opposition to renewables infrastructure in regional communities is real and you can't come to Canberra and argue against the views of your electorate.' Labor is watching closely. As it pushes ahead with the transition to renewable energy and talks up Australia's commitment to the Paris climate agreement, there is political opportunity in the Coalition's dysfunction. An observer who lived through the first two decades of Australia's climate wars says Anthony Albanese could be the ultimate winner from any move to ditch net zero. 'If he's smart, Albanese might choose to leave Barnaby's private members sitting on the notice paper so it stirs fights between the Liberals and the Nats for six months. Then he could, at a time of maximum political convenience, bring it on for debate,' they say. 'Joyce has handed Albo the timer to a bomb planted inside the Coalition party room.'
