Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rachel Stevens]: What?

[Amy Sheldon]: Alright. Welcome back to the House Environment Committee. We are moving away from budget conversation and shifting gears to the endangerment finding with Rachel Stevens from ANR. Welcome.

[Rachel Stevens]: Hello. Just for the record, my name is Rachel Stevens. I'm an attorney and I work for the Agency of Natural Resources. My primary focus at the agency is air quality and climate change. I'm going to share my screen here. Showing up? Okay, great. So today I wanted to talk about, just provide an update on some current events that are happening related to climate, just to provide a general sense of awareness for the committee. So this I'm just gonna provide a pretty high level overview of the EPA Endangerment Finding and what it means. So this matter relates to a United States Supreme Court case from 2007 coming out of the Bush administration related to whether the Environmental Protection Agency could regulate greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. The Supreme Court in 2007 found that greenhouse gas emissions are considered air pollutants under the federal Clean Air Act, and therefore EPA could regulate. The court also found that in order for EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, it must make a finding or make a determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. So the Supreme Court, this was part of its interpretation of the federal Clean Air Act, was that, yes, EPA can regulate, but in order to do so, it must make a finding that greenhouse gas emissions affect public health. So in 2009, under the Obama administration, the US EPA did make an endangerment finding. The EPA found that greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere threatened public health and welfare by contributing to climate change. The endangerment finding is considered the legal prerequisite for EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. These findings in and of itself does not establish any regulation or requirements. After the endangerment finding in 2009, EPA did issue greenhouse gas standards for federal motor vehicles. This was the first in its kind. So just zooming ahead to last month, the Trump administration EPA took two actions to undo what it had previously done in 2009 and beyond. So first, it repealed the endangerment finding, which, as I mentioned, was the prerequisite for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Second, the EPA repealed those vehicle emission standards for greenhouse gas emissions that it had previously adopted as part of adopting the company. So what this means is that EPA is no longer going to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles and potentially at all related to climate change. These actions, as far as we know, only relate to greenhouse gas emissions and do not affect other federal standards related to air pollutants. So EPA did say in its press statements that it is not currently repealing the criteria pollutant vehicle emission standards at the federal level. So just wanted to provide a little bit of insight about EPA's reasoning. So first, the EPA determined that air pollution only extends to pollution with local or regional effects, and then it couldn't be into it couldn't mean or couldn't extend to global phenomenon like climate change. That's not what what the Clean Air Act could have intended. They also interpret the phrase cause or contribute to suggest that it must be both pollutant and source specific, and that they did not find a connection between greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles and the impacts of climate change. EPA also made some legal arguments to suggest that it lacked clear congressional authorization to regulate vehicle emissions to address climate change, which I guess would be inconsistent with the Supreme Court's decision. These are just a couple other quotes from the EPA's action. EPA argued it would be unreasonable to maintain greenhouse gas emissions program because the cost or regulation are too immense. EPA also found that eco emission standards would not have a scientifically measurable impact for mitigating climate change and essentially argued that these emissions standards would be futile. Yeah.

[Amy Sheldon]: Yeah, Representative Austin.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin]: Yeah. Is it safe to assume that science and data and things being substantiated were involved in this conversation?

[Rachel Stevens]: So EPA really based its decision on some legal arguments, trying to reinterpret provisions of the Clean Air Act. Was an attempt to, there the Trump administration created a climate working group in 2025 to create a report to try to contradict some of those findings with the Department of Energy. They did rely on that, those additional kind of contradictory scientific findings, I think in the proposal, but not in the final decision. So it does seem like the primary reasoning that EPA is relying on is a legal interpretation, not so much rebutting the science of the finding. And is anybody keeping track of the economic and health costs of this decision? Yes, that's a big point of contention. So the Trump administration has communicated that it's no longer quantifying the public health or doesn't intend to quantify the public health impacts of decisions. We can do that using modeling, and we do that when we implement rules. But the finding did include an economic analysis of the cost of the regulation, but it didn't really have a counterpoint if the administration isn't accounting for the public health costs. But it is measurable.

[Amy Sheldon]: So it's measurable and we're measuring it?

[Rachel Stevens]: We do measure air pollution impacts in Vermont. So if we know what pollution impact is from a decision as it relates to Vermont, we can quantify the public health effects of that. EPA did, in the record, did quantify what it estimates to be the air pollution impacts from the decision. But I I think that's that may be in dispute about the actual numbers. So we can quantify air quality impacts if they're known at the agency.

[Amy Sheldon]: But are we?

[Rachel Stevens]: Yes, we do. I mean, think there's a lot that we're still trying to figure out about the impact of the decision in terms of what actual impacts will be to Vermont. So I don't want to speculate, but we're definitely evaluating that. So I just wanted to mention EPA and its, in making its decision did make some claims about its impact on state authority. So EPA interpreted the Clean Air Act to restrict not only the federal government's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but suggested that it would impact state's authority to do so using kind of two distinct types of what are called preemptive arguments. The committee may be familiar, but just as a refresher, there are kind of two types of preemption that EPA is arguing about. One is it's arguing that there's federal express preemption, and we'll talk about that. That means there's some provisions in the Clean Air Act related to motor vehicles that expressly preempt states from taking action more stringent than the federal government. Then And there's something called field preemption where the federal regulation is so pervasive and comprehensive that it implicitly precludes states from regulating. So EPA is kind of claiming, making some arguments about state authority under both. So I just wanted to provide a quick refresher about Clean Air Act, Federal Clean Air Act versus state authority to regulate air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. So what I'm trying to express with this visual is that the Federal Clean Air Act is the floor for regulation. So on the I don't know if it's the left. On this side, we have everything except motor vehicles. So in almost every example, besides motor vehicles, the federal standards can be more stringent than the federal, the state standards can be more stringent than the federal standards because the Clean Air Act includes what's called a savings clause that says that states can be more stringent than the federal government, that it's not preempted under most categories. Under motor vehicles, there is a section that provides express preemption of states. So, and you may have heard our agency talk about this in the past, but there can only be federal standards for motor vehicles or California standards. So California in the Clean Air Act has permission to adopt more stringent standards than the EPA if they get what's known as a preemption waiver. I'll just move to the next slide. And other states known as the Section 177 states can follow California. So states have essentially a choice between the federal standards or the California standards. So this, I think, important just to illustrate that in most cases, states can be more stringent in the motor vehicle space. It's more complicated because California and EPA are the only two entities that can regulate. Vermont is a Section 177 state, so we follow California Motor Vehicle Emissions Standards.

[Amy Sheldon]: And those standards, that's for the sale of new cars, is that right?

[Rachel Stevens]: Yes, yes. But they've been in place since the 2000s. And so they set motor vehicle emission standards, and we've got vehicle sale requirements for electric vehicles as well. So those are just my affirmative slides. Happy to answer any questions. Mostly just wanted to provide awareness of these kind of ongoing legal issues. Many of these legal issues are still live and being discussed internally. There's some information that I probably can't share, but it's I'm to answer any specific questions as best I can.

[Amy Sheldon]: By lively means sort of still in litigation?

[Rachel Stevens]: Yeah, potential pending litigation. A lot of attorneys and states are evaluating the decision to determine what to do next.

[Amy Sheldon]: And can you describe how this affects the day to day operations of our air quality division?

[Rachel Stevens]: So the most concrete impact that I could describe, just based on the decision, could be that So as I mentioned, we follow the California Motor Vehicle Emissions Standards, which includes greenhouse gas emission standards. So Vermont follows those California standards. EPA is taking the position that its actions would make those regulations unenforceable. Again, lawyers may disagree, but I think that's at least the most tangible impact so far for Vermont would be EPA's position that our greenhouse gas emission standards for motor vehicles may be unreforceable.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin]: Representative Austin. Yeah, so think, I mean, maybe the federal government contradicts this, but I think my understanding is that transportation is like the second highest contributor to greenhouse gases. And so I hope you can follow my thinking. My concern in Vermont is flooding due to the changing weather patterns caused by greenhouse gas emissions. And what I'm seeing happening is my concern is insurance. My concern is that the insurance industry is now either not renewing home insurance or it's astronomical in cost and that FEMA isn't coming to help us. And I'm concerned that it not only is it falling to the local municipalities, but I think eventually it's gonna fall on the state, the citizens of Vermont, to pay for the damage for flooding and rebuilding. Is that a logical kind of I

[Rachel Stevens]: think I think it is safe to say federal government backing away from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, climate change impacts in Vermont or elsewhere may become worse. More severe. More severe. And then who is held, is anybody held responsible for that? Because I feel like it is a choice.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin]: It's not something that's not in our control.

[Rachel Stevens]: That's a really good question. And I I don't I'm pretty sure that transportation is the largest source in Vermont. Oh, okay. I can double check. It may have changed in the last I didn't know if it was inventory, but it's it's high. All

[Amy Sheldon]: right, further questions on this? Not seeing any. Thank you.

[Rachel Stevens]: Thank you.

[Amy Sheldon]: Alright. With that, members, the floor will be very long. So we are we are early today out of committee, which I I highly recommend you get outside and do some self care and make sure you have food, snacks stockpiled. With that, we will.