The EPA’s Endangerment Finding: Science on Trial (Again)
The danger of resurrecting a fake climate debate
In the early 20th century, every gallon of leaded gasoline burned in American engines released a potent neurotoxin into the air, one that the public unknowingly breathed for decades. Leaded gasoline, despite causing documented deaths among refinery workers and serious neurological damage to children, remained in widespread use for decades. The reason? A deliberate campaign of manufactured doubt.
Industry-funded scientists insisted the harms weren’t “proven.” Regulators were pressured to delay action until every possible uncertainty was resolved. A single toxicologist, bankrolled by industry, became the loudest voice arguing that lead was safe, until decades of epidemiological research finally made the truth undeniable. By then, a lot of damage was already done.
That same strategy—deny, delay, dispute consensus—is being redeployed today. When the Trump administration proposed overturning the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding this week, most observers rightly saw it as a deregulatory effort to weaken climate protections.
That’s true. But it may not be the whole story.
Because here’s the thing: it would be ludicrous for the Trump administration to believe this rollback has strong odds of surviving judicial review. The endangerment finding rests on decades of scientific research, rigorous agency processes, and multiple court validations. Even legal minds in the administration must recognize this is an uphill legal battle.
So why pursue it?
The answer may lie not in the courts, but in the public sphere. By targeting the finding, even unsuccessfully, the administration may achieve a different kind of win: reopening the door to a climate change “debate” that has been closed. Like the red-team/blue-team proposals floated during Trump’s first term, this isn't a move grounded in new evidence. It’s a play to revive doubt.
And that’s the real danger. Because if they succeed in making the science look uncertain again, if they can frame basic facts about atmospheric physics and human-caused warming as matters of opinion or ideology, they can weaken the political consensus needed for action. Just as they did with vaccines. Just as was done with lead.
This is the disinformation playbook. And the Trump administration is reopening it again to sow doubt on climate science.
Step One: Manufacture Controversy Where None Exists
In 2009, the EPA issued its endangerment finding, declaring that greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health and welfare. That decision was grounded in overwhelming scientific evidence and legal precedent. Since then, climate science has only become more robust, with increasingly dire projections and clearer attribution of human-driven impacts and harms that are already happening.
Yet the Trump administration has moved to cast doubt on this science, arguing that the harms of greenhouse gases are speculative. The science hasn't changed, but the political calculus has.
Reopening the question of whether greenhouse gases threaten public health allows the administration to reframe settled science as a live debate. It doesn’t need to win the argument. It only needs to keep the argument going.
This mirrors exactly what happened in the vaccine space. Long after the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccines had been demonstrated in countless studies, skeptics insisted there was still debate. By giving fringe voices the same platform as experts, they manufactured the appearance of controversy. That appearance was enough to erode trust and confuse the public.
Step Two: Create Red Teams and Pseudo-Debates
In national security, "red team" exercises are used to test vulnerabilities by simulating adversarial attacks. But the Trump administration has sought to apply this concept to climate science, proposing that dissenting scientists be formally pitted against consensus researchers in a public debate.
This is not how science works. Scientific consensus emerges through decades of collecting evidence, that evidence going through peer review, and replication of research. It does not hinge on who performs best in a one-off public forum.
The red team proposal is not about improving the science. It's about legitimizing opposition to it. It's about making doubt look like rigor, and casting consensus as censorship.
Vaccine skeptics called for “both sides” to be heard, appearing on panels and in public hearings that give fringe views the same platform as established medical science. But presenting fringe views as equal to established science only creates confusion.
Step Three: Undermine Trust in Institutions
Another tactic shared across these disinformation efforts is the systematic attack on the credibility of scientific institutions. In the case of vaccines, skeptics often claim that the CDC, FDA, and WHO are compromised by financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, and that public health is subordinate to profit.
In climate policy, the narrative flips. Agencies like the EPA, NOAA, NASA, and international bodies like the IPCC are not accused of industry capture, but rather of political capture, which is portrayed as partisan actors exaggerating threats to justify regulations, restrict freedom, or promote globalist policies.
In both cases, the result is the same: trust in scientific expertise erodes, and coordinated action becomes harder to achieve. The goal here is to sever the public’s link to expertise. If people believe that scientific consensus is just another form of politics, then facts become optional.
Step Four: Build Cultural Identity Around Skepticism
What began as technical debates eventually harden into cultural identities. Vaccine skepticism has become linked with ideas of parental autonomy, natural health, and resistance to government overreach.
Climate denial is increasingly framed as a marker of political and cultural identity: pro-freedom, anti-elite, rural, patriotic. In this worldview, believing in climate change isn’t just a matter of evidence, it’s a sign that you’ve bought into an urban, liberal, globalist ideology.
By turning skepticism into a badge of belonging, disinformation campaigns make it socially costly to change your mind, even when faced with strong evidence.
The Consequences of Reopening Settled Questions
If the Trump administration succeeds in overturning the endangerment finding, the regulatory fallout will be severe. It would cripple the EPA’s ability to limit harmful air pollutants from power plants, vehicles, and industry.
But the epistemic fallout may be even worse.
It would signal that even long-settled science is up for grabs if the politics shift. It would embolden future efforts to relitigate consensus on other issues, from nutrition to air pollution to reproductive health. It would send a message that facts are negotiable.
And it would likely further erode the public’s ability to distinguish between good-faith scientific debate and strategic disinformation.
What We Can Do
The public still has a chance to comment on the proposed rollback. Scientists, health professionals, and institutions should speak clearly and forcefully about what this decision represents: not just a threat to environmental regulation, but a broader attack on the role of science in policymaking.
We should not be lured into another round of faux debate. Participating in a rigged debate is not a win for science, it’s a win for disinformation. Climate change is real. Many of its effects have negative and harmful consequences. Pretending otherwise doesn’t open the door to better science; it opens the door to disaster.
Let’s not walk through it.
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