Trump ends endangerment finding, sparking climate fight (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: We are officially terminating the so-called endangerment finding, a disastrous Obama-era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry.

[00:00:10] Speaker 2: That was US President Donald Trump announcing that he's cancelled a major climate change decision made during Barack Obama's presidency. The decision he ended is called the endangerment finding. It ruled that greenhouse gases are dangerous to people's health, so the US government must work to reduce them. One of its goals was to push industries, like car makers, to cut their pollution.

[00:00:28] Speaker 3: Trump called it all a scam. This determination had no basis in fact, had none whatsoever, and it had no basis in law.

[00:00:35] Speaker 2: He said the rule made cars more expensive and that scrapping it would let manufacturers skip emissions limits, cutting their costs by about $2,400 per vehicle and making cars cheaper to buy. But environmentalists dispute this. They argue that removing efficiency standards will mean higher fuel use, actually forcing Americans to spend more on petrol for these less efficient vehicles. They've also warned the rule about it could have severe health consequences. The Environmental Defence Fund, a group of scientists and policy experts who study pollution, estimates it could lead to up to 58,000 additional premature deaths and 37 million more asthma attacks. Environmental groups are set to challenge the move in court, saying that more science now backs the 2009 finding and that ending it makes the government less able to fight climate change.