Trump EPA moves to wipe out climate rules for power plants
Trump EPA moves to wipe out climate rules for power plants
特朗普政府环保署采取行动，废除发电厂气候法规
On the heels of the hottest summer on record and a United Nations report warning that global temperatures are likely to push climate risks to “increasingly dangerous heights,” the Trump administration overturned most of a Biden-era rule limiting climate pollution from power plants, the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
在经历了有记录以来最热的夏天，以及联合国一份警告全球气温可能将气候风险推向“日益危险的高度”的报告发布之后，特朗普政府推翻了拜登时期限制发电厂气候污染的大部分规定。发电厂是温室气体排放的第二大来源。
The Environmental Protection Agency announced a final plan Monday that guts the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards, which the agency said exceeds its authority under the Clean Air Act by requiring control technologies “that are not adequately demonstrated.” The agency also proposed revoking “all remaining GHG emissions requirements for power plants,” arguing their emissions “have no material impact on climate change.” The plan to revoke the Carbon Pollution Standards was initially revealed last spring.
美国国家环境保护局（EPA）周一宣布了一项最终计划，旨在废除2024年的《碳污染标准》。该机构称，这些标准要求使用“未经充分验证”的控制技术，超出了其在《清洁空气法》下的权限。该机构还提议撤销“所有剩余的发电厂温室气体排放要求”，并辩称这些排放“对气候变化没有实质性影响”。撤销《碳污染标准》的计划最初于去年春天披露。
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act’s definition of air pollutants includes greenhouse gases, which cause climate change, and that if the EPA concludes that GHGs pose a danger to human health and the environment, it must act to reduce those emissions. The EPA made that “endangerment finding” in 2009.
2007年，美国最高法院裁定，《清洁空气法》对空气污染物的定义包括导致气候变化的温室气体；如果环保署认定温室气体对人类健康和环境构成威胁，就必须采取行动减少这些排放。环保署于2009年做出了这一“危害认定”。
“The Trump administration is now kicking the legs out from under the entire legal framework for regulating climate pollution by arguing that climate pollution does not harm human health or welfare,” said Zealan Hoover, a former senior advisor to the EPA during the Biden administration. Hoover and other environmental and climate experts have not yet had a chance to review the specific arguments the agency is making to justify its actions.
“特朗普政府现在通过辩称气候污染不会损害人类健康或福祉，正在从根本上摧毁监管气候污染的整个法律框架，”拜登政府时期环保署的前高级顾问齐兰·胡佛（Zealan Hoover）表示。胡佛和其他环境与气候专家尚未有机会审阅该机构为证明其行为合理性而提出的具体论点。
Maggie Coulter, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, expects the Trump administration to make a “non-endangerment finding” so they don’t have to regulate greenhouse gas emissions at all. “That goes against really well-established science,” Coulter said. “Will this stand up in court? We would argue, definitely not.”
生物多样性中心气候法律研究所的高级律师玛吉·库尔特（Maggie Coulter）预计，特朗普政府将做出“无危害认定”，这样他们就不必再监管温室气体排放了。“这违背了非常成熟的科学，”库尔特说。“这在法庭上站得住脚吗？我们认为绝对不会。”
Experts on the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long attempts to deny the reality or consequences of climate change see the same tactics in the Trump administration’s latest actions. President Donald Trump called climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” last year during a speech at the United Nations.
那些研究化石燃料行业几十年来试图否认气候变化现实或后果的专家们，在特朗普政府的最新行动中看到了同样的策略。唐纳德·特朗普总统去年在联合国发表演讲时，称气候变化是“有史以来对世界实施的最大骗局”。
“Who needs Big Oil to deny climate science, undermine science-based decision-making, and endanger people’s lives and livelihoods when the US government will do it for them?” asked Geoffrey Supran, director of the Climate Accountability Lab at the University of Miami.
“当美国政府愿意代劳时，谁还需要大石油公司去否认气候科学、破坏基于科学的决策并危及人们的生命和生计呢？”迈阿密大学气候问责实验室主任杰弗里·苏普兰（Geoffrey Supran）问道。
“The government can choose to deny reality,” said Ben Franta, an associate professor of climate litigation at the University of Oxford, who has highlighted the role of false solutions in delaying action on climate change. “But the real damages from global warming will continue to accumulate, from heat waves and fires to superstorms and floods, and calls for accountability will only increase.”
“政府可以选择否认现实，”牛津大学气候诉讼副教授本·弗兰塔（Ben Franta）说，他曾强调虚假解决方案在延缓气候变化行动中的作用。“但全球变暖带来的真实损害将持续累积，从热浪和火灾到超级风暴和洪水，要求问责的呼声只会越来越高。”
Since returning to office, Trump has overseen a multi-pronged attack on the legal and regulatory framework to protect public health and the environment from the climate-warming consequences of greenhouse gas emissions. In February, the EPA overturned the endangerment finding that underpinned its authority to regulate greenhouse gases from motor vehicles, the largest source of climate pollution.
自重返白宫以来，特朗普一直在对保护公众健康和环境免受温室气体排放导致气候变暖影响的法律和监管框架进行多管齐下的攻击。今年2月，环保署推翻了其监管机动车（气候污染的最大来源）温室气体排放权力的基础——“危害认定”。
The same month, the agency attacked states’ rights to pass stricter climate regulations by using a parliamentary trick to revoke decades-old Clean Air Act waivers that underpinned California’s vehicle emissions standards, though a federal judge has temporarily blocked that move. And now, in going after the Carbon Pollution Standards, the agency aims to remove limits on power plants.
同月，该机构利用议会手段撤销了支撑加州车辆排放标准的、已有数十年历史的《清洁空气法》豁免权，从而攻击各州通过更严格气候法规的权利，尽管联邦法官已暂时阻止了这一举措。而现在，通过针对《碳污染标准》，该机构旨在取消对发电厂的限制。
Part one was repealing the endangerment finding, Hoover said. Now that that’s done, they’re working on part two, rolling back different regulations that relied on the endangerment finding, and part three, which would prevent future efforts to regulate climate pollution.
胡佛说，第一步是废除“危害认定”。现在这一步已经完成，他们正在进行第二步，即撤销依赖于该认定的各项法规；第三步则是阻止未来监管气候污染的努力。
The first Trump administration repealed a bunch of public health regulations, then Trump lost his re-election bid, and the Biden administration reinstated many of them, he said. Now, they are not just repealing them “but burning them to the ground,” in an effort to make it incredibly hard for a future administration to come back in and re-regulate public health pollution, Hoover said. “It’s really quite pernicious.”
他说，特朗普第一任期废除了一系列公共卫生法规，随后特朗普竞选连任失败，拜登政府恢复了其中许多法规。胡佛表示，现在他们不仅是在废除这些法规，“更是在将其彻底摧毁”，目的是让未来的政府极难重新介入并对公共卫生污染进行监管。“这确实非常恶毒。”
EPA spokespersons did not respond to a request for comment about what science they are using to support the claim that greenhouse gas emissions don’t contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.
对于他们使用何种科学依据来支持“温室气体排放不会对危险空气污染产生重大影响”这一说法，环保署发言人未回应置评请求。
The climate and health benefits of the Carbon Pollution Standards “substantially outweigh the compliance costs,” Biden’s EPA announced in June 2024. The agency pointed to a regulatory impact analysis that projected reductions of 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon pollution through 2047, the equivalent of preventing nearly a year of emissions from the entire US electric power sector or avoiding the annual emissions of 328 million gas-powered cars.
拜登政府的环保署在2024年6月宣布，《碳污染标准》带来的气候和健康效益“大大超过了合规成本”。该机构指出，一项监管影响分析预测，到2047年，碳污染将减少13.8亿公吨，这相当于防止了整个美国电力行业近一年的排放量，或避免了3.28亿辆燃油车一年的排放量。
The entire regulatory framework is based on cost-benefit analyses, Hoover said. But so far, the Trump administration is “heavily discounting, if not completely refusing” to quantify public health benefits in regulations, he said.
胡佛说，整个监管框架都是基于成本效益分析的。但他表示，到目前为止，特朗普政府在法规中“严重低估，甚至完全拒绝”量化公共卫生效益。
In announcing the power plant regulations repeal, Trump’s EPA said only that, by unleashing coal and natural gas, its new rule will save $310 billion, and its proposal to rescind “every remaining greenhouse gas standard for the power sector” would save an additional $370 million in direct compliance costs. It also said the rules would save American families and businesses billions more. Independent studies, however, have reported that coal power is driving higher utility costs for consumers.
在宣布废除发电厂法规时，特朗普的环保署仅表示，通过释放煤炭和天然气潜力，其新规将节省3100亿美元，而其撤销“发电行业所有剩余温室气体标准”的提议将额外节省3.7亿美元的直接合规成本。它还声称这些规则将为美国家庭和企业节省数十亿美元。然而，独立研究报告指出，煤电实际上正在推高消费者的公用事业成本。