Trump revokes landmark climate ruling - branding it 'the Green New Scam'

In a move that goes against all available scientific evidence, the US president announced his decision to revoke the 2009 ruling that has acted as the central basis for US climate change policy for nearly two decades.

The Trump administration hopes this will increase the number of petrol cars sold and slow the rise of electric vehicles.

Branding the decision “the largest deregulation in American history”, the White House claimed the cost of manufacturing cars would fall by $3,000 per vehicle.

The decision will now see the Obama-era regulations dismantled, cancelling federal efforts to rein in emissions and re-opening the door to large-scale polluters.

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Speaking from the White House, Trump said: "This radical rule became the legal foundation for the Green New scam.

"One of the greatest scams in history, probably as great, maybe even greater than Russia, Russia, Russia, hoax which the Obama and Biden administration used to destroy countless jobs."

He added: "The endangerment finding was also used to impose the massive and really very expensive electric vehicle mandate. Expensive in the sense that nobody wanted it.

"Everybody was going to be forced to buy an electric car in a very short period of time, even though you can't power the car because we would have had to spend $5 trillion on power stations. That's all dead. Gone. Over.

"These crippling restrictions were a major factor in driving up car prices to unprecedented levels. And the car that you were getting was not nearly as good.

"In four years under the Biden administration, the price of a new and used car rose more than 22%. All to facilitate the green new scam without achieving any meaningful impact on the environment, but making the car worse.

Environmental groups have called this the biggest rollback on climate change in decades and plan to challenge it in court.

“This is corruption, plain and simple. Old-fashioned, dirty political corruption,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, senator for Rhode Island, ahead of Trump's announcement.

“This is an agency that has been so infiltrated by the corrupt fossil fuel industry that it has turned an agency of government into the weapon of the fossil fuel polluters.”

“The Trump administration is abandoning its core responsibility to keep us safe from extreme weather and accelerating climate change,’' said Abigail Dillen, president of the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice.

“There is no way to reconcile EPA’s decision with the law, the science and the reality of disasters that are hitting us harder every year. Earthjustice and our partners will see the Trump administration in court.”

The ruling underpins essentially all US climate policy, including the Clean Air Act, which prevents corporations from dumping large amounts of pollution into the air.

Speaking on Trump's decision, Laura Young, environmental scientist and campaigner told LBC News' Jonathan Ray that it is not "a surprise when we look at the trajectory that we have been on and that we are going on".

She added: "When it comes to Trump's administration with climate action or inaction, he obviously has been trying to remove the United States from the United Nations, climate actions, the global agreements.

"He has been shutting down research institutions, and now he is looking at the home legislation and policies that they have."

Discussing the legislation which has been in place for 17 years, Young said: "It's something that has protected countless lives when it comes to air pollution, and it's really helped America boost their green economy.

"So it's very frustrating that we have seen it, and of course, we know that this is also going to contribute really badly to global carbon emissions and climate change."

Young added that the policy change, which will result in "millions of tonnes of carbon being released", is likely to contribute to "tens of thousands of premature deaths and millions more asthma attacks".