"Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was going to reject the work it had done back in 2009, when it first determined that greenhouse gas emissions posed a threat to the US public. While it laid out a number of reasons for revisiting its earlier work, one of those focused on the science: The EPA's original decision was over 15 years old, and it claimed our understanding of climate change had itself changed since then."
"The National Academies of Science (NAS) decided that at least one aspect of that was probably right: Our understanding of the climate has changed in the last 15 years. So, it asked a group of scientists to do a quick update of our understanding of greenhouse gases, completed before public comment was closed on the EPA's plan. That report is now out, and the NAS's conclusion is clear: The EPA was right in 2009, and everything we've learned since has only made it more right."
The EPA proposed rejecting its 2009 endangerment finding, arguing that scientific understanding of climate change had evolved over more than 15 years. The National Academies of Science reviewed recent evidence on greenhouse gases and concluded that the 2009 finding remains valid and is reinforced by subsequent science. The 2009 endangerment determination enabled regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, underpinning plans targeting transportation and electricity generation. Those regulatory plans have been delayed, blocked in court, or abandoned. The first Trump administration issued weak regulations, while the second sought to overturn the endangerment finding for legal and other reasons.
Read at Ars Technica
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