President Donald Trump on Thursday revoked the 2009 endangerment finding, which has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

But in making the announcement, Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin made false claims regarding the government declaration, climate change, and energy.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

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TRUMP: “Known as the endangerment finding, this determination had no basis in fact, had none whatsoever, and it had no basis in law.”

THE FACTS: This is false. The endangerment finding was adopted in 2009 by the EPA after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases are air pollutants that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

“The idea that the endangerment finding has no basis in law is ludicrous,” said Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA specifically directed the Environmental Protection Agency to determine whether greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The endangerment finding is the result.”

Scientific evidence to support the endangerment finding was provided by the EPA at the time of its inception and is still available on the agency’s website today.

Multiple federal courts have upheld the endangerment finding since it was adopted 16 years ago. ___

TRUMP: “We’ve basically stopped all windmills in this country. It’s the most expensive energy you can get.”

THE FACTS: Onshore wind is one of the cheapest sources of electricity generation, with new wind farms expected to produce around $30 per megawatt hour, according to July estimates from the Energy Information Administration.

This compares to a new natural gas plant, around $65 per megawatt hour, or a new advanced nuclear reactor, which runs over $80. Offshore wind is among the sources of new power generation that will cost the most to build and operate, at $88 per megawatt hour, the EIA said in July.

___ TRUMP, asked about the cost to health and the environment: “It has nothing to do with public health. This is all a scam, a giant scam. This was a rip off of the country by Obama and Biden, and let’s say Obama started it and got it rolling and a terrible rip off.”

THE FACTS: Thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies connect health harms to climate change. They find increasing deaths from heat waves, extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods and air pollution from worsening wildfires. A 2021 study in Nature Climate Change calculated that globally about 9,700 people die a year from heat-related deaths attributable to human-caused climate change, based on data from 732 cities, including more than 200 in the United States.

A separate study last year listed dozens of climate change health harms and concluded, using the EPA’s own calculation method, that the health costs are at least $10 billion a year, probably much more.

The science of climate change dates back nearly 170 years to studies done by American Eunice Foote showing that carbon dioxide heated cylinders with thermometers inside more than ambient air. The first national climate assessment, done in 2000, before Obama and Biden, “concluded that climate variability and change are likely to increase morbidity and mortality risks.”

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ZELDIN: “The Obama and Biden administrations used the endangerment finding to steamroll into existence a left-wing wish, including electric vehicle mandates.”

THE FACTS: Trump has made this claim before. There was no federal mandate to force the purchase of EVs.

“If you looked at some of the tables that were in the Biden rules, you could see that there were a variety of different ways that companies could comply with the standards,” said Carrie Jenks, the executive director of Harvard Law School’s environmental and energy law program. “The endangerment finding nor the regulations mandated a shift from one type of vehicle to another.”

Former President Joe Biden did set up a non-binding goal that EVs make up half of new cars sold by 2030. Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office revoking that goal.

Biden’s policies tightened restrictions on pollution from gas-powered cars and trucks in an effort to encourage Americans to buy EVs and car companies to shift from gas-powered vehicles to electric cars. ___

Associated Press writers Seth Borenstein and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report.

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Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

UNITED NATIONS: Iran’s election as vice-chair of the United Nations Commission for Social Development is being slammed by human rights advocates and policy analysts, who have condemned the U.N.’s hypocrisy when it comes to its treatment of undemocratic regimes. 

The leadership role was approved without objection during a meeting of the commission, where delegates adopted agenda items and organizational decisions by consensus.

The United Nations has faced continued criticism over its inaction towards the regime’s violent crackdown against protesters in December and January. On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres faced criticism for congratulating Iran on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

UN CHIEF BLASTED AS ‘ABJECTLY TONE-DEAF’ OVER MESSAGE TO IRAN MARKING REVOLUTION ANNIVERSARY

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz criticized the development, writing on X: “Yet another reason why we are not a member of, nor do we participate in, this ridiculous ‘Commission for Social Development.’”

Alireza Jafarzadeh, author of The Iran Threat and deputy director of the U.S. office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also criticized the decision. “Having the Iranian regime in the leadership of a U.N. body tasked with promoting democracy, gender equality, tolerance and non-violence is appalling and like fox guarding the hen house,” Jafarzadeh said. “The vast majority of the Iranian people are calling for regime change because the mullahs are the world’s leading human rights violators, misogynist to the core, and they slaughter the voices of dissent by thousands.”

He argued that Iran should face scrutiny rather than institutional advancement. “Instead, the Iranian regime must be a subject of intense investigation and accountability by all U.N. bodies for crimes against humanity and genocide, from the 1980s to January 2026 uprisings,” Jafarzadeh said. “Decades of inaction by Western governments have emboldened the regime. This must stop now.”

G7 THREATENS IRAN WITH NEW SANCTIONS OVER NATIONWIDE PROTEST CRACKDOWN KILLING THOUSANDS

“By electing Iran to help lead a commission devoted to democracy, women’s rights and non-violence, the U.N. makes itself into a mockery,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “This is a regime that brutalizes women for not covering their hair, and that just massacred tens of thousands of its own civilians in two days.”

Neuer argued that governments had the ability to block the appointment but chose not to act. “The EU states know how to stop abusive regimes from winning these seats — they’ve done so in the recent past with Russia — but this time on Iran, they chose silence and complicity,” he said. “By rewarding the Mullahs right after their slaughter of innocents, the U.N. has now sent a very dangerous message to Tehran.”

Lisa Daftari, an Iran analyst, said the optics of Iran holding a leadership role in a commission centered on social development and rights were deeply troubling.

US AMBASSADOR WARNS IRAN AT EMERGENCY UN MEETING THAT TRUMP IS ‘MAN OF ACTION,’ ‘ALL OPTIONS ARE ON THE TABLE’

“For Iranian women who risk prison or worse just for taking off a headscarf, watching Tehran get a vice-chair on a U.N. social-development commission feels like a slap in the face.”

She added that broader patterns in U.N. voting and resolutions contribute to perceptions of bias.

“When the same U.N. system has spent the last decade passing roughly 170-plus resolutions against Israel and only around 80 on all other countries combined, you don’t need a PhD to see there’s a bias problem,” Daftari said. “When the U.N. has churned out well over a hundred anti-Israel resolutions in recent years while managing a fraction of that number on the world’s worst dictatorships, it looks less like moral leadership and more like political theater.”

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Daftari rejected that procedural nature of United Nations committees and committees.

“Some diplomats will wave this away as a procedural formality, but at the U.N. nothing is ever purely symbolic,” she said. “The bottom line is that handing Iran’s regime a gavel on ‘social development’ confirms yet again that the place is biased and deeply hypocritical.”

European leaders floated a two-speed union as the fastest way to break a political impasse over economic reforms needed to reboot the European economy, as French President Emmanuel Macron set a summer deadline for a broad deal.

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“What we decided today is that between now and June, we will have to finalise the agenda,” Macron said upon departing the castle. “If in June we don’t have concrete prospects and concrete progress, we will continue with enhanced cooperation.”

While the EU is built on consensus at 27, frustrations about the pace of reforms prompted calls to work in smaller groups of countries in what would signal a shift in European politics, favouring action and speed over unanimity.

The so-called enhanced cooperation is a legal provision in the EU treaties that allows at least nine countries to join forces and advance initiatives on their own. It came to prominence in December after EU leaders triggered the mechanism to issue a €90 billion loan to Ukraine without Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

“Often we move forward with the speed of the slowest, and the enhanced cooperation avoids that,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said in the closing press conference.

Von der Leyen name-checked two legislative files for which the legal tool will be considered: the first phase of the Savings and Investment Union, which aims to create a cross-border system to mobilise private savings into strategic projects, and the 28th regime, which aims to create a uniform framework to set up companies across the bloc.

Enhanced cooperation for the Savings and Investment Union could be considered as early as June if “no sufficient progress” is achieved by capitals, she added.

By her side, António Costa, the president of the European Council, said he would “work to avoid” the emergence of a two-speed Europe as much as possible and always strive for an agreement by all 27 member states.

“This is our first goal,” Costa underlined. “If it doesn’t work, of course, the Treaty of Lisbon offers several solutions. One of them is enhanced cooperation.”

Von der Leyen echoed the sentiment. “Don’t get me wrong, I prefer it by 27,” she said.

Impatience for change

The push to break the deadlock was shared by other leaders who attended the retreat at the Alden Biesen castle in eastern Belgium, heavily focused on competitiveness. Capitals have grown increasingly desperate over the widening gap between the EU and its main global competitors, namely the US and China.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who sought to portray an image of unity with Macron after public disagreements over eurobonds (joint debt) and the “Made in Europe” preference, spoke of a “strong sense of urgency” to effect change.

“The European Union has to act swiftly and resolutely,” he said.

Earlier on Thursday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described a two-speed Europe as the appropriate way to proceed in the current context.

“If you had asked me five or ten years ago, I would have said no,” Frederiksen told reporters. “Now you ask me today, and then I would say yes. “

“Several (countries) can block Europe from doing what is right for Europe, and I think we will see governments that are pro-Russian and that are in reality against Europe”, the Danish leader added, saying it is unacceptable that “we do not do what is needed for Europe because of one country or two.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also expressed support.

Further encouragement came from Mario Draghi, the former president of the European Central Bank, who authored a highly influential report on competitiveness and attended Thursday’s summit as a special guest.

During his address to leaders, Draghi recommended exploring the use of enhanced cooperation to “move faster” in high-priority areas such as the Savings and Investment Union, the single market and energy prices, an EU official said.

A two-speed Europe is controversial by nature because it separates member states into different leagues, but it is, in many ways, already a reality. The eurozone and the Schengen Area are the most visible examples of a two-tier system.

Before the Ukraine loan, enhanced cooperation had been used to create the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), introduce a unitary patent and harmonise divorce law.

Besides these structures, which are underpinned by legal statutes, European countries regularly team up in informal groupings to defend common interests, such as the “Frugal Four” and the “Friends of Cohesion” during budget talks. The Weimar Triangle, the MED9, the Visegrád group and the Nordic-Baltic Eight are other examples.

Last month, the finance ministers of Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain launched a new coalition, dubbed the E6, to push for “decisive action and swift progress” in four strategic areas, including defence and supply chains.

“We are providing the impetus, and other countries are welcome to join us,” said German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, extending an open invitation.