The Trump administration on Thursday revoked a landmark scientific finding that serves as the legal foundation for federal regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions, in a devastating blow to efforts to combatclimate change.

The Environmental Protection Agency'sendangerment finding, established under PresidentBarack Obamain 2009, classified carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases as a threat to public health and welfare.

It underpins Clean Air Actemissions standardsand rules for cars and light trucks, power plants, and oil and gas industry facilities.

"Under the process just completed by the EPA, we are officially terminating the so-called endangerment finding," PresidentDonald Trumpsaid at the White House with EPA AdministratorLee Zeldin.

Zeldin said all greenhouse gas emissions standards on light, medium and heavy duty vehicles that followed the endangerment finding have been eliminated. "No longer will automakers be pressured to shift their fleets towards electric vehicles," he said.

The endangerment finding emerged from aSupreme Courtdecision in 2007 that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and the EPA must determine whether they pose a threat to public health.

Zeldin's decision to revoke the finding is the most significant action taken yet in the Trump administration's campaign to dismantle U.S. regulations that address climate change. He described the repeal as the largest de-regulatory action in American history.

Obama said in asocial media postthat the Trump administration's action makes the U.S. "less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change — all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money."

TheSierra Club, the largest environmental group in the U.S., said Trump has formalized "climate denialism as official government policy."

It warned that eliminating greenhouse gas standards not only imperils the public, but will expose industries to a flood of litigation. The Supreme Court ruled in aunanimous decisionin 2011 that companies cannot be sued under federal common law over greenhouse emissions because regulation of these emissions had been delegated to the EPA.

Source: Drudge Report