Let’s Restore Environmental Governance

Contrary to the hysterics, the climate hasn't spiraled into chaos

Every April, the green confetti comes out for Earth Day, a ritual long since devolved into performative hand-wringing and finger-pointing.

Instead of celebrating human ingenuity and real environmental gains, we’re treated to scaremongering campaigns designed to prop up crony energy subsidies and government overreach. If we’re serious about restoring environmental integrity and empowering human flourishing, then the White House and Congress must take two monumental steps: Repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called endangerment finding and repeal the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.

Both are built on houses of cards.

The endangerment finding, issued by the Obama EPA in 2009, was the regulatory trigger for all greenhouse gas rules that followed. It declared that carbon dioxide and other emissions “endanger” public health and welfare, justifying a tidal wave of federal climate mandates. The finding wasn’t based on sound science; it was a political maneuver born of judicial fiat and bureaucratic activism. It’s no accident that Administrator Lee Zeldin recently announced a reconsideration of the endangerment finding. Its legal and scientific basis has always been on shaky ground.

Without congressional authorization, the EPA used this flimsy document to impose policies that have cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars, weakened our energy grid and undermined national security. Contrary to the hysterics, the climate hasn’t spiraled into chaos. In fact, greenhouse gases, namely carbon dioxide and water vapor, have helped green the planet, boost agricultural yields and stave off famine.

Legal path to repeal is clear

Thanks to an executive order issued on April 9, “Directing the Repeal of Unlawful Regulations,” the path to terminating the endangerment finding is now wide open. The order allows federal agencies to repeal existing regulations, including the endangerment finding, that have been rendered unlawful by Supreme Court decisions, most notably West Virginia v. EPA (2022). That case affirmed that federal agencies cannot regulate major policy questions, such as greenhouse gas emissions, without clear and express congressional authorization. As even the Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) majority acknowledged, Congress never gave the EPA that authority.

Because the endangerment finding is clearly invalid under current law, the EPA does not need to go through lengthy notice-and-comment rulemaking. The executive order invokes the “good cause” exception under the Administrative Procedure Act, enabling agencies to repeal unlawful regulations immediately, without keeping them on the books, which would be contrary to the public interest. Repealing the endangerment finding under this framework would remove the legal foundation for countless costly and coercive climate mandates and collapse the factual basis for the Inflation Reduction Act’s trillion-dollar spending spree.

In other words, the president and EPA administrator have everything they need to act right now. Eliminating the endangerment finding with a pen would protect the Constitution, rescue American energy and restore sanity to environmental governance.

A green new scam

As I wrote in the Washington Examiner, the $1.2 trillion legislative monstrosity called the Inflation Reduction Act was sold on a lie. It didn’t reduce inflation, strengthen the economy or even help the climate. What it did was shovel taxpayer money into politically connected industries — wind, solar, electric vehicles and batteries — while degrading the grid, driving up prices and outsourcing America’s energy infrastructure to our geopolitical rival China.

The Inflation Reduction Act is a Trojan horse for environmental, social and governance mandates and anti-human climate extremism. It subsidizes unreliable technologies already failing in real time, such as offshore wind fiascoes and bankrupt EV startups. The spending spree is far from over. If allowed to continue, the Inflation Reduction Act will cost more than $4 trillion over the next decade while gutting consumer choice and flooding the market with inferior products such as dim light bulbs and washing machines that can’t clean clothes.

Celebrate abundance

The truth is simple: Fossil fuels are not the enemy of environmental quality; they’re its precondition. They allow us to irrigate crops, treat sewage, power hospitals and refrigerate vaccines. Without them, billions around the world would still live in darkness, poverty and premature death. Repealing the endangerment finding and the Inflation Reduction Act won’t set us back; it will set the world free.

Let Earth Day be a turning point. Let’s trade delusion for reason, dependence for abundance, and coercion for freedom. Let’s repeal the green lies, restore American energy and honor the Earth and its people.

• Jason Isaac is the CEO and founder of the American Energy Institute. He served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives.

Originally Published in The Washington Times