The EPA Is Abandoning the 10 Commandments of Climate Policy

The Environmental Protection Agency’s decision last month to repeal the Endangerment Finding is like tossing out the 10 Commandments.

That might sound hyperbolic. But sadly, it isn’t. After months of relentless anti-environmental regulatory efforts at the EPA, Administrator Lee Zeldin is now tearing out the foundation of our country’s climate regulatory framework. Known as the “Endangerment Finding,” this 2009 document is the scientific basis for regulating greenhouse gas emissions. By abrogating that finding, Zeldin and the EPA are essentially stripping away our government’s ability to regulate the emissions that are heating our planet. It is not only a profoundly misguided decision, it is one aimed at destroying the legal framework our country has developed to drive a coherent climate policy.

Interestingly, back when he was a congressman, Administrator Zeldin supported some climate regulations. At Dayenu, the leading Jewish climate organization that I direct, we had actually hoped that the first Jewish head of the EPA might honor the most basic of Jewish values—like pikuach nefesh (saving a life)—and pursue environmental policies that support a more livable future in the face of a fast accelerating climate crisis.

Instead, Administrator Zeldin has embarked on an almost unconceivable path. Since taking office earlier this year, he’s overseen the wholesale dismantling of the environmental policy framework designed to keep Americans safe. Scores of regulations have been repealed, imploding the basic legal and regulatory structure of American environmental policy. The coup de grace, though, has been his decision last month to abandon the Endangerment Finding.

The Endangerment Finding translates the lived reality of the climate threat—namely, that greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to our health and well-being—into a legal framework that has enabled us to begin mounting a substantive response.

Like the 10 Commandments, the Endangerment Finding is not only a legal framework, it is also a codification of basic truths. The commandment not to murder (lo tirzah), for example reflects a truth: that it is wrong to wantonly kill another human being. The commandment institutionalizes a basic moral precept. The same goes for the Endangerment Finding. By now, it should be blindingly obvious to us all that the threat to our climate is here and real. Whether or not we choose to accept that truth, we are all being impacted by climate change. From wildfire smoke in New York, to ravaging hurricanes in Florida, to the wildfires in Los Angeles, to floods in Texas, to summers that are each hotter than the last. We now know, at the most intrinsic level, that our world is not the same as it was five years ago. Or 50. The climate is changing, and we as humans are responsible.

The Endangerment Finding translates the lived reality of the climate threat—namely, that greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to our health and well-being—into a legal framework that has enabled us to begin mounting a substantive response. True, climate regulations have oftentimes not gone far enough. The first Trump administration did terrific damage to crucial pieces of environmental policy passed under the Obama administration. But what is happening under Administrator Zeldin takes our nation to an infinitely more reckless place.

Administrator Zeldin claimed that the Endangerment Finding was “the holy grail of climate change religion.” This not only makes a mockery of religion, it distorts the objective science and obvious moral framework at hand. As people of faith, we are concerned with the fundamental principles and values of our society. Administrator Zeldin is weaponizing the very concept of religion to suggest that those of us confronting the climate crisis are fearmongers, that the lived realities of millions of Americans harmed by climate change can simply be ignored. But his language is a smokescreen. We know what the truth is here. The EPA is essentially taking the 10 Commandments out of the Bible—they are disabling the central moral and legal framework designed to keep us safe and healthy.

Administrator Zeldin is knowingly courting disaster. As an administrator, as an American, and as a Jew, he must do better. It is not too late to reverse course.