Article: Repeal of the Endangerment Finding Could Be the Biggest Regulatory Relief in History
The Climate Change/Renewable Energy Hoax Has Cost Americans More Than $1 Trillion
In a bold move that has been a long time in coming, the Trump Administration revoked the 2009 Endangerment Finding on greenhouse gases. This Obama-era decree (initiated by the George W. Bush Administration), which labeled CO2 and other emissions as threats under the Clean Air Act, unleashed a cascade of regulations that distorted markets, inflated costs, and hindered mankind’s mandate to subdue and steward the earth (Genesis 1:28). Americans should celebrate this—not as a rejection of environmental care, but as a restoration of liberty, property rights, and wise dominion over creation.
The Endangerment Finding’s harms have been profound, a violation of the call for rulers serve for the good of their people (Romans 13:3-4). Rooted in flawed science—reliant on models that overestimate warming by two to three times and ignore CO2’s benefits like global greening—it bypassed required peer review and expanded EPA power without congressional approval. The resulting regulatory interventions replaced consumer preferences with dictates of the elite.
The toll of this abuse of authority on humans was staggering. Policies pushing renewables in a failed attempt to replace fossil fuels have exacerbated energy poverty across the globe. Billions of people in “unplugged,” third world nations, where per-capita electricity use lags behind a single refrigerator’s annual consumption, have been denied the benefits of low-cost electricity from coal and natural gas.
As Robert Bryce notes, Americans have also suffered. U.S. coal plant closures since 2010 have spiked energy prices in America since we have been denied the low-cost benefits of coal with its centuries of energy in reserve. The push for wind and solar as a replacement for fossil fuels has cost directly cost Americans more than $600 billion, draining their wallets as they pay higher taxes and higher prices for everything from electricity to cars and plastics. Even worse, these inefficient sources generate only when weather cooperates creating an unreliable electric grid; witness Texas’ 2021 blackouts during Winter Storm Uri. The end result of the Climate Scam is that prosperity has suffered: higher energy costs erode purchasing power, job growth, and overall GDP.
These outcomes should not be surprising as the climate change policies violate the eighth commandment’s protection of private property (Exodus 20:15). They effectively steal from taxpayers and consumers and transfer the stolen funds to multinational corporations with multi-billion market caps, echoing 1 Samuel 8’s warnings of kings enriching themselves and their court at the expense of their subjects. Disobeying God always results in negative consequences (Deuteronomy 28).
According to the Trump Administration, the repeal of the Endangerment Mandate will eliminate regulations that have added $1.3 trillion in economic costs and lower vehicle prices by $2,400 per family. It will also promote energy abundance and increase prosperity. Over time, energy markets will be able to again transmit consumer preferences via prices, enabling efficient adaptation to scarcity (per Hayek), far superior to the central planning of the Climate Change regime. This frees markets for innovation, boosting jobs, affordability, and reliability—key to human health and economic growth, as studies show unidirectional causality from electricity to prosperity.
As Christ’s servants, rulers must humble themselves and “kiss the Son” (Psalm 2:10-12), serving Him for the good of His people (Romans 13). Yet the Endangerment Finding epitomized pride, substituting “expert” models of failed climate change projections and rule by the few for God’s provision of wisdom transmitted through the voluntary exchange of the abundant fuels which He has provided for us. Repeal liberates us to exercise dominion voluntarily, through investment and exchange, not through the coercion of mandates and taxation.
Announcing the repeal, the White House claimed, “President Trump Delivers Biggest Regulatory Relief in History.” We are all aware of the president’s fondness of hyperbole. But in this case, he may be right. In fact, he probably understates the effects. In ending the Endangerment Finding, we should find hope as electrification’s march resumes across the globe. We will be able to further benefit from, as Bryce explains, the creative power akin to Genesis’s light that electricity grants us and thus be more faithful stewards of our abundant God-given resources.
