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1. Bob Loblaw at 11:41 AM on 3 March 2026
   Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
   

   OPOF @ 49:

   Yes, Snyder's On Tyranny is also good.

   Incidentally, he left Yale University last year, and took up a position at the University of Toronto, in Canada. (Not because of Trump, according to his Wikipedia page.)

2. John Hartz at 08:21 AM on 3 March 2026
   Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
   

   This long-read assessment of Trump's ongoing attack on climate science is one you will want to bookmark for future reference.

   This "pull-no-punches" analysis is authored by Robert Kopp, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Rutgers University. He is the co-author of Economic Risks of Climate Change: An American Prospectus and a contributor to the Fourth National Climate Assessment and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report.

   Trump Is Attacking Climate Science. Scientists Are Fighting Back
   It’s easy, looking at the past year, to see the damage the administration has done. But researchers are also stepping up, trying to fill the gaps.by Robert Kopp, The New Republic (TNR), Mar 1, 1016

   https://newrepublic.com/article/207000/trump-climate-science-funding

3. One Planet Only Forever at 07:00 AM on 3 March 2026
   Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
   

   Bob Loblaw @46,

   I have read, and would encourage others to read, Timothy Snyder's books ... not just On Freedom.

4. One Planet Only Forever at 06:56 AM on 3 March 2026
   Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
   

   Responding to nigelj’s comment @44, and Bob Loblaw's @46 and 47,

   Regarding the statement that “...some of us are more reactive to distant future events that others, for some reason that seems deeply seated. Like personality differences.”

   My way of saying it would be:

   Some people give more consideration to distant future events that others. For some reason some people are powerfully motivated against being concerned for the future. It may be because of genetic predisposition, like personality differences (the nature side of nature vs nurture).

   I think it is more likely to be differences of upbringing (the nurture side), the culture people grow up in, encouraging or discouraging primal instinctive drives for self-interest, what they developed a liking for.

   Lots of research indicates that altruistic tendencies are innate in humans and can be seen when they are young (Do an internet search for “research on altruism in young children”).

   A key understanding is that the success of humans is most likely due to the ability of humans to learn about what is harmful and what is helpful and thoughtfully evaluate how alternative actions would produce different future outcomes with the following important distinctions made between possible future outcomes:

   • Lasting collective benefit. More sustainable, less harmful:
   • Proactive, Improvement, Progress
   • Temporary benefit for some people. But more harmful to Others:
   • Reactive, Deterioration, Regression

   The long-term success, survival, of a group or individual understandably requires governing by proactive learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others. This learning is more challenging than regression into primal instinctive anxiety. It is more challenging when misleading marketers can benefit from triggering primal instinctive anxiety.

   Any individual or group that fails to self-govern that way likely has no future regardless of temporary perceptions-of-the-moment of success, superiority or Winning.

   Opposition to reducing the many understandable harms and risk of harm due to fossil fuel burning caused global warming and climate change is potentially the greatest ‘Future threats’ to humanity. Undeniably the people who want to maintain and increase perceptions of superiority developed because of the harmful use of fossil fuels consider any action to limit that ‘future threat to humanity’ to be an ‘immediate threat to them’.

5. Bob Loblaw at 02:18 AM on 3 March 2026
   Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
   

   nigel @ 44:

   More grist for the reading list....   Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. It covers the two modes of thinking - quick, but often unreliable, reaction to immediate dangers (handy when running away from that rustling in the bushes might save you from getting eaten), versus slow, analytical thinking that is needed to accurately deal with distant dangers. Much the same story as that interview you quote.

   Certain politicians excel at triggering that fast, emotional response. Unfortunately, they have also learned how to use that to manipulate people.

6. Bob Loblaw at 02:05 AM on 3 March 2026
   Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
   

   OPOF @ 43:

   The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is worth reading in its entirety. Article 29 includes:

   Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

   Too many people think that freedom does not include any duty or responsibility towards others.

   Timothy Snyder's book On Freedom is also worth reading, and discusses at length how an individual's freedom is tied to the actions of the community they live in. Snyder distinguishes between "freedom to" and "freedom from". Freedom is not just the absence of things such as regulation, occupation, oppression, or government. To be free, you also have to have an environment/community that enables you to do things. In the preface of the book (p xiv), Snyder says:

   We are told that we are "born free": untrue. We are born squalling, attached to an umbilical cord, covered in a woman's blood. Whether we become free depends upon the actions of others, upon the structures that enable those actions, upon the values that enliven those structures - and only then upon a flicker of spontaneity and the courage of our own choices.

   In other words, we are in this together.

7. Bob Loblaw at 01:43 AM on 3 March 2026
   Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
   

   nigel @ 38:

   Going back in history, many trades operated guilds that helped identify skilled craftsmen. But as you point out, there is a fine line between controlling entry to the association to ensure that the people in it are truly skilled versus controlling entry to maintain some sort of privilege and exclusivity (and economic advantage). When it comes to regulation, the equivalent to the latter is regulatory capture (which I mentioned in #10). Someone has to watch the watchers, to make sure that the system is kept honest.

   Even for something like engineering, where a person is accredited to design structures, there is a dependency on other accreditation processes. An engineer designing a building does not design and test the beam that will be used - they buy one "off the rack" from a company that makes them and provides specifications of the load it can handle. And that company will need to test their beams according to some sort of independent methodology developed by an accredited standards association.

   I would argue that climate change is indeed a topic that has massive health and safety implications for the public, but as you say it is a much less tangible and immediate than things such as health outcomes, electrical safety, etc. The current EPA has codified this by barring the use of any indirect costs in the economic analysis of regulations.

   The implications that can arise from climate change are also influenced by many other factors, which makes it easy for the contrarians to engage in a variation of whataboutism - assigning blame of any observed bad outcomes on something else. The tobacco industry perfected this technique in delaying actions against tobacco's health impacts.

   Another issue with something like climate change is that is it not a well-defined target zone of study. Atmospheric science will help you understand why a region's climate is what it is, and how it might change, but to understand sea level rise you need to know oceanography. And to know food production implications, you need to know agricultural science. And to know flooding risks, you need to know hydrology. And to know ecosystem stresses, you need to know ecology. Thus "climate change" is by its nature an extremely multidisciplinary subject. You need a lot of people cooperating to put it all together. No single person can do it all alone, and the fake skeptics that act as if they know it all are clearly working outside their area of expertise. The width of the “climate change” net can be seen by the tremendous variety of references listed in things like the IPCC reports. The shallowness of the contrarians' analysis can be seen in the highly-selective and self-referential lists of publications they include in their reports.

   In the current Trump administration, the phrase "conflict of interest" takes on new meaning - "Only my interests matter, and the only conflict is how others dare to challenge me".

8. nigelj at 10:48 AM on 2 March 2026
   Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
   

   OPOF was talking about people who ignore the best interests of future generations. The expert interview below is relevant and important and does it related to climate change. Its a long read but worth it. Its from NPR. Ive made a few of my own comments at the end. The article:

   Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert argues that humans are exquisitely adapted to respond to immediate problems, such as terrorism, but not so good at more probable, but distant dangers, like global warming. He talks about his op-ed piece which appeared in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times.

   The interview:

   NEAL CONAN, host:

   In an op-ed in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert argues that human brains are adapted to respond to some threats more than to others. For example, he says, we take alarm at terrorism, but much less to global warming, even though the odds of a disgruntled shoe bomber attacking our plane are, he claims, far longer than the chances of the ocean swallowing parts of Manhattan.

   And the reason is biology, the human brain evolved to respond to immediate threats but may completely miss more gradual warning signs. If you have questions about how and why our brains got wired this way or about its implications, 800-989-8255, or e-mail us, talk@npr.org.

   Daniel Gilbert is a professor of psychology at Harvard University, author of the book Stumbling On Happiness. You can link to his op-ed and to all previous Opinion Pages at the TALK OF THE NATION page at npr.org.

   Daniel Gilbert joins us now from his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nice to have you on the program today.

   Professor DANIEL GILBERT (Psychology, Harvard University): Thanks so much for having me.

   CONAN: Now, you say that we need to put a threat, a face on a threat, in order to truly perceive it.

   Prof. GILBERT: Well, that’s true. I mean, you know, look, if alien scientists were trying to design something to exterminate our race, they would know that the best offense is one that does not trigger any defense. And so they would never send little green men in spaceships. Instead, they would invent climate change, because climate change has four properties that allow it to get in under the brain’s radar, if you will.

   There are four things about it that fail to trigger the defensive system that so many other threats in our environment do trigger.

   CONAN: As you point out in your piece, our brains are exquisitely tuned to, if we see a baseball coming at our head, get out of the way.

   Prof. GILBERT: Exactly so. So that’s one of the features of climate change that makes it such an insidious threat, is that it’s long-term. It’s not something that threatens us this afternoon, but rather something that threatens us in the ensuing decades. Human beings are very good at getting out of the way of a speeding baseball. Godzilla comes running down the street, we know to run the other way. We’re very good at clear and present danger, like every mammal is. That’s why we’ve survived as long as we have.

   But we’ve learned a new trick in the last couple of million years – at least we’ve kind of learned it. Our brains, unlike the brains of almost every other species, are prepared to treat the future as if it were the present. We can look ahead to our retirements or to a dental appointment, and we can take action today to save for retirement or to floss so that we don’t get bad news six months down the line. But we’re just learning this trick. It’s really a very new adaptation in the animal kingdom and we don’t do it all that well. We don’t respond to long-term threats with nearly as much vigor and venom as we do to clear and present dangers.

   CONAN: So a lot of us thought evolution would reduce us to four toes or maybe four fingers. You say what it in fact has meant is that we’ve developed delayed gratification.

   Prof. GILBERT: Well, yes indeed. I mean, evolution has optimized our brain for the Pleistocene. I mean, you’d be, you know, if we put you back three million years, you’re going to be the most adapted animal walking the earth. The problem is that our environment has changed so rapidly because we’ve got this great big brain so we could navigate our ancestral environment, and lo and behold, what did we do? We created an entirely new environment to which our brain is not perfectly adapted.

   CONAN: We’re talking with Daniel Gilbert, a psychologist at Harvard University, on the TALK OF THE NATION Opinion Page. If you’d like to join us, 800-989-8255, e-mail, talk@npr.org. And this is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

   Another requirement for that human response, that triggered response, is some sort of moral outrage, you say.

   Prof. GILBERT: You’re right. And so I started by saying there were four, and then I talked about one, so what are the other three? The other three are, A) the source of the threat should be human rather than inanimate; B) there should be a moral component; C) as we just talked about, it should be short-term rather than long-term; and D) if you want the human brain to respond, you really want to make sure that the threat is sudden rather than gradual.

   So you asked about the moral component. There’s a lot of energy these days in our Congress, and indeed in our nation, devoted to what really our strictly moral issues. There’s very little doubt that many people will be injured by burning flags or gay sex, and yet we are up in arms about flag burning and gay marriage. And the reason is that these offend many people at the moral level. We’re very good at taking umbrage. We’re just not very good at taking action against things that don’t create – that don’t arouse moral emotions. And you know, climate change just doesn’t.

   As I say in my essay, if, you know, if eating, if the practice of eating kittens were the thing responsible for climate change, we’d have people massing in the street in protest right now, because eating kittens is such a morally reprehensible action.

   CONAN: Yet we see things like, obviously a terrorist attack, a human action, really centers everybody’s attention. Tens of thousands of people die on American highways every year and nobody notices.

   Prof. GILBERT: Well, you’re exactly right. I mean, one of the things that the human brain is specialized for is other human beings. They are the greatest source of reward and punishment in most of our environments. We’re a highly social mammal, and our brains are awfully good at looking for, thinking about, and remembering any sign of other people and their plans and their intentions. That’s why we see faces in the clouds but we never see clouds in peoples’ faces. If you play people white noise for long enough, they begin to hear voices in it. But they never hear white noise in voices.

   So we’re looking. It’s as if the brain is tuned in to the signal of other human action. And that’s why when other people do things to us, we’re very, very quick to respond. We respond to terrorism with unrestrained venom and with great force, just as our ancestors would have responded to, you know, a man with a big stick. The problem is climate change doesn’t have a human face. It’s not an Iraqi with a big mustache. It’s not somebody we can villainize. It’s not a man with a box cutter. And so if there’s no one to vilify, there’s no face to put it to, it’s hard for human beings to get very excited about it.

   CONAN: Let’s get a call in from Guillermo, Guillermo calling from Raleigh, North Carolina.

   GUILLERMO (Caller): Hi.

   CONAN: Hi.

   GUILLERMO: I guess my point is similar along the lines – somewhere along the way in school I heard a story basically along the lines of more complex issues humans don’t process that well yet. So, for example, if a person had to hear all of the news events that occurred on the planet earth in a single day, your brain wouldn’t be able to take it. And I just wanted him to see if there’s any truth in this, or…

   CONAN: Does quality relate to our quality of alarm?

   Prof. GILBERT: Well, you bet it does. I mean, climate change in some ways is a very simple issue. But those who profit from not taking action against global warming have turned it into a complicated issue. Why have the opponents – and believe it or not, there are opponents of action against global warming – why are the opponents turning it into a complicated issue? Well, as our caller well knows, if we can make this complicated, enough people will throw up their hands and say, you know, scientists, they all disagree. Who knows what we can really do about this?

   You know what? Scientists don’t disagree about this, and what we can do is very, very clear.

   CONAN: Scientists don’t necessarily agree on the cause of it. They do agree that it’s happening. Anyway, Guillermo, thanks very much for the call.

   GUILLERMO: Thank you very much.

   Prof. GILBERT: Well, scientists agree to an enormous extent on the cause of it. You know, it’s interesting, when you look at scientific articles on global warming, there’s enormous consensus. When you look at news articles on global warming, about half of them mention that there isn’t much consensus. It really just isn’t so. Scientists are in vast agreement about the causes of global warming, as much as they’re in agreement about the dangers of cigarette smoking. You could say scientists don’t all agree, and I’m sure there’s somebody out there who’s still saying it doesn’t cause cancer, but by and large…

   CONAN: So there you have an evil human face you can put on this. Those who are dastardly working towards profit 50 years hence.

   Prof. GILBERT: You see, that’s how I’m getting myself to respond.

   CONAN: Thanks very much for being with us, Daniel Gilbert. We appreciate your time today.

   Prof. GILBERT: My pleasure. Thanks.

   CONAN: Daniel Gilbert’s op-ed was this week in the Los Angeles Times. It’s Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Threats.

   Again, if you’d like to read the piece, there’s a link to it at our webpage. Just go to npr.org and go to the TALK OF THE NATION page. Also there, all of the other previous Opinion Pages on TALK OF THE NATION.

   I’m Neal Conan. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News, in Washington.

   Copyright © 2006 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at http://www.npr.org for further information.

   https://www.npr.org/2006/07/03/5530483/humans-wired-to-respond-to-short-term-problems

   My comment: I’m not a doomer. I dont think such findings mean we are locked into inaction, or that we are doomed. Perhaps we can overcome these impediments, and renewable energy is gaining traction on its merits and low costs anyway. But its just something we need to understand. And I think some of us are more reactive to distant future events that others, for some reason that seems deeply seated. Like personality differences.

9. One Planet Only Forever at 07:52 AM on 2 March 2026
   Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
   

   Responding first to Bob Loblaw @27, adding to Bob and Nigel’s discussion, and adding to Other comments like prove we are smart:

   My perspective can definitely be considered to be “...one where nobody has the right to force harm on others….a call to Freedom - each person needs to be free from others causing them harm.” It is aligned with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and related understandings like the Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 13 is Climate Action), the Planetary Boundaries, and key related understandings based on climate science like the Paris Agreement.

   Note that the UDHR ‘tells people, especially leaders, that there are justified limits and expectations regarding how they act’ – they need to be governed by learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others. If they won’t responsibly self-govern that way they should expect to be limited by responsible leadership. That is what self-governing professional bodies, like professional engineers and medical professions, do. As a Professional Engineer one of my responsibilities was to be willing to ‘Say No, and explain way’ in response to a client’s unacceptable desire or demand.

   I often sense that people want the freedom to believe and do as they please. And they want ‘a better present for themselves’ rather than ‘caring to develop the gift of a better future for others’. They are not interested in Inter-generational Equity (see the Wikipedia page). They discount the future (see Why environmental policy struggles to value the future earth.com, Eric Ralls, Jan 25, 2026. part of the listing of the 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #05). They try to argue that they are harmed if others govern them in ways that limit the harm they can do, often arguing that they do not accept the understanding that what they want the freedom to do is harmful.

   Telling people that ‘future generations will have to live without using fossil fuels because burning non-renewable resources cannot be continued indefinitely and that, in addition to fossil fuel use being unsustainable, it is harmful’ seems to really enrage some people. They often try to claim that the marketplace of business and politics should govern who gets to be harmful. I agree with them as long as the marketplaces are effectively governed by learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others rather than being compromised by harmful misleading competition for perceptions of superiority. That seems to make them angrier.

   As a result I agree with the need for comprehensive consideration of all ‘stakeholders’ on an issue. I would add that ‘all future people’ need to be considered. And I would clarify that the evaluation of everyone’s potential for harm does not mean compromising harm reduction because of some stakeholders wanting to benefit from the harm.
   ____________
   Related to prove we are smart’s comments,

   it is becoming undeniable that the US is a failing state. It is failing to make its leaders face consequences for deliberately misleadingly pursuing benefit from causing more harm to Others, especially future generations.

   The likes of Trump seem to act based on a world-view of negative-sum competition, harm is the major motivation for everyone. They believe everyone pursues personal benefit any way they can get away with. Their game-perspective is to benefit more from harming Others than Others harm them.

   That is fundamentally contrary to being governed by the UDHR which is a positive-sum game world-view with the understanding that collective action based on learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others will result in sustainable improvements for everyone … except for those people who benefited from harmful behaviour in the past who may lose some developed perceptions of higher status (and deserve that loss of status).
   _____________
   Regarding Inter-generational Equity.

   The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and Diversity Equity Inclusion (see this Oxford Review item on Inter-generational Equity) are parts of the diversity of continuing to improve evidence-based understandings.

   The SDGs are based on understanding that ‘future humans need to have equality of Rights and Freedom from harm’.

   That exposes the harmful limitation of developed legal thinking, especially thoughts that ‘threat of legal consequences is all that is needed to ensure better, less harmful and more helpful, behaviour’. Legal remedy often requires ‘proof of actual harm done prior to (as the basis for) making the legal claim’. The threat of ‘Harms discovered later’ resulting in negative consequences for the people who benefited from the harm done in the past, or from actions that had higher risk of future harm, is a tragically weak deterrent.

   The legal validity of Inter-generational Equity, especially regarding CO2 emissions pollution, is increasing, much to the chagrin of people who want the freedom to maximize their benefit from actions that harm Others. Legal implications of Inter-generational Equity are that leaders would be subject to consequences if they fail to act to equitably protect future generations from human caused climate change harms.
   _______________
   Summary

   The US has developed the ability to have the most helpful or most harmful leadership on this planet. Tragically, the voting population of the US has repeatedly proven that it likes its leadership to be Harmful To Others, including future generations of global humanity.

   Clearly, the ‘Fix’ will require systemic changes to significantly increase the evidence-based justified Freedom of future generations of humanity from harm done by the unsustainable pursuits of benefit by current generations and their predecessors. The most harmful in the current generation need to most rapidly change their ways of living and profiting, even if it reduces their status relative to Others. And the biggest current day beneficiaries of the history of CO2 pollution harm owe the most towards repairing the damage done and helping Others adapt to the harmful changes that have already been caused.

   One helpful action would be effective penalties for elected representatives and appointed representatives who are discovered to be misleading.

   • Read the comments regarding new Welsh government rules to penalize misleading representatives made on SKS item “New Book - Climate Obstruction: A global Assessment”
   • Refer to CBC article “He was hired to fight for Wales's future generations. Does Canada need a job like that?’

   It is no surprise that people wanting to benefit from being harmful dislike increased awareness and understanding of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Inter-generational Equity; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Sustainable Development Goals; Planetary Boundaries; and Climate Science and so much more. All that pesky Wokeness is likely to result in ‘Less Freedom for them to do what they want to do … from their perspective … the End Times are Coming.

10. prove we are smart at 06:37 AM on 2 March 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    First,thanks for that link JH,I believe protest marches by a countries citizens are the BEST form of action when dire changes are needed.They say "action speaks louder than words" and this  Stand Up For Science protest is a needed inclusive march for all.

    My first protest march was the School Strike 4 Climate here in Australia  "the strikers are increasingly attracting the involvement of people who have never been involved in climate activism before and a diversity of young people from different geographic and ethnic backgrounds."  Good luck with achieving your needed goals, Col.

11. John Hartz at 01:42 AM on 2 March 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    From the Union of Concerned Scientists:

    One year after the movement-defining Stand Up For Science protest, organizers are returning to the streets on SATURDAY MARCH 7th, 2026 to save science, protect health, and defend democracy! This year, we are excited to officially endorse the Stand Up for Science National Day of Action and we encourage YOU to attend a rally or hold your own Pop-Up Protest.

    Details of events, volunteer sign-up, and Pop-Up Protest information can be found on the Stand Up for Science website:

    https://www.standupforscience.net/march7

12. prove we are smart at 10:22 AM on 1 March 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    Look I get it, this is a science based blog site specifically for climate news,facts,explanations and more. The critical thinking discussions are enlightening and my own knowledge and questioning radar is usually always up and running now,especially now I have the time to research and reflect.

    But our fight with denniers, with inequality, with corruption, with justice, encompasses all in one related struggle. Caring for our biosphere and everything in it means, I can't put my head in the sand anymore-maybe the older you get,the more empathy you get,I don't know.

    "this nation is morally bankrupt and that's the most gentle way I can put it". My Australia has many echoes of what this man is explaining is our world now.www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUY6FzzRO6c

13. prove we are smart at 08:14 AM on 1 March 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    "Yes the system relies on honour, honesty, civility, balance, good intent - all those unspoken ethical values. And unfortunately The Trump Administration seems intent on undermining all this. I can only hope the wider population revolt against this and claim back honour."

    Well said Nigelj, but really, the "seems" is only for those with blinkers on.  The corrupt system in the USA has had its mask well and truly ripped off by this administration- will the people unite, maybe. Meanwhile another illegal war has started- what the fuck is wrong with their congress and media.

14. nigelj at 06:23 AM on 1 March 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    Bob@37, registration and accreditation of professionals is probably also an economic and philosophical issue. Generally the more restrictions you have on who can call themselves a particular expert or work in a profession, the more barriers to entry one creates and more you create a sort of entrenched privilege. So the idea seems to be reserve things like registration and accreditation for professions where safety and health implications are huge like engineering, electricians, and doctors. I think that does make some sense. Scientists work generally doesn't have massive health and safety implications for the public, at least tangible immediate ones.

    The public regard scientists as experts and mostly still hold them in high esteem. Despite lawyers requiring some form of registration, they are not held in hugely high esteem by the public.

    The problem if I read you right is scientists talking out of their area of expertise. But the guys that do this seem to be in a minority and its generally a youtube thing. It really annoys me, but its a hard one to solve. Even if scientists were accredited in their particular field, its probably not going to stop them pontificating on other fields, and many of these physicists who think they are self appointed experts on everything are retired guys so can do what they like. The only solution that seems viable to me is to teach the public better critical thinking skills, to recognise the fake experts or experts that are getting outside of their area. 

    BL: "When it comes to pollution controls and regulations, we already have a process where the regulators are supposed to consult with a variety of stakeholders: independent scientists, industry (with their own scientists), etc. These system must work, at least in part, on some sort of an honour system. Will The Powers That Be do an honest job of looking after the public interest, searching out a balanced and practical solution? Can we establish a practical system that will prevent the take-over by unscrupulous "special interests"? Can we create a system that most people will trust? (For the current EPA, the answers to those questions appear to be no, no, and hell no.)"

    Yes the system relies on honour, honesty, civility, balance, good intent - all those unspoken ethical values. And unfortunately The Trump Administration seems intent on undermining all this. I can only hope the wider population revolt against this and claim back honour.

    It is mystifying how an organisation like the EPA gets run by ex oil industry hacks and people of that sort. It makes no sense at all. You want bodies like that run by people with environmental or at least neutral business qualifications. If there is a concern about the organisation being over zealous environmentally then have some checks and balances against that. Have a watchdog committee or something. Scrutinise appointments to head such organsations to ensure they are not extremists environmentally.

    Anyway you have touched on a whole range of issues I find interesting, but please feel free to ignore my rant if you are busy.

15. Bob Loblaw at 02:48 AM on 1 March 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    nigel:

    i agree that trying to create a formal accreditation process for scientists would be impractical. Just look at how difficult it is in academia to properly assess an academic career. Toss in a little "academic freedom" to encourage out-of-the-box thinking, and formalizing effective rules for accreditation becomes a snipe hunt. Peer review exerts some control, but it is not perfect. In the general science world, the person with repeat failures eventually gets ignored - by the science world. But they can often develop a successful career (success defined by making money and getting attention) by expanding their target audience to anyone with money or power that likes the message they are selling.

    But the issue of how do we identify "experts" remains. In addition to engineers, we do have formal processes for lawyers, doctors (and other medical professions), pilots, etc. When I worked in Alberta, their engineering group covered engineers, geologists, and geophysicists. To a large extent, these professional organizations are granted an oversight duty by government, and become somewhat self-regulating.

    When it comes to pollution controls and regulations, we already have a process where the regulators are supposed to consult with a variety of stakeholders: independent scientists, industry (with their own scientists), etc. These system must work, at least in part, on some sort of an honour system. Will The Powers That Be do an honest job of looking after the public interest, searching out a balanced and practical solution? Can we establish a practical system that will prevent the take-over by unscrupulous "special interests"? Can we create a system that most people will trust? (For the current EPA, the answers to those questions appear to be no, no, and hell no.)

    Unfortunately, the current trend (especially in the US) is towards a combative, winner-take-all system, where anyone who's axe does not get ground accuses everyone else of being an unscrupulous special interest. And when an unscrupulous special interest group gets its hands on the reins of power, as is the case in the US, all heck breaks loose. The last resort there is probably the legal system, as ineffective as it can be in examining scientific questions. (Their voting system is on the verge of breaking down, too.)

    I've seen the news stories over at RealClimate, and read some of the reports written by people such as Dessler. I rarely read any of the comments over there any more, as certain individuals have transformed the RC comment stream into a cesspool.

16. One Planet Only Forever at 10:21 AM on 28 February 2026
    Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
    

    This is an update on my previous comments regarding the Trump-led government efforts to speed-up and reduce the costs of 'New small scale nuclear power plants'.

    There is a new news item: Secretly rewritten nuclear safety rules are made public, NPR, Geoff Brumfiel, Feb 26, 2026.

    The following quote reinforces the understanding that 'compromising safety - increasing harm done or risk of harm' is to be expected from the Trump-led government-of-the-moment ... as long as the right people benefit and the people the likes of Trump don't care about are most likely to be harmed.

    The rule changes came about after President Trump signed an executive order calling for three or more of the experimental reactors to come online by July 4 of this year — an incredibly tight deadline in the world of nuclear power [likely to result in more harm and more risk of harm]. The order led to the creation of a new Reactor Pilot Program at the Department of Energy.

    People who made bad bets on developing new nuclear power plants should not be 'rewarded'. But rewarding harmful bad-bet-makers is at the core of Trump's "Art of the Deal".

17. nigelj at 05:53 AM on 28 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    Bob @ 35, totally get your point about the problem of scientists pontificating freely well outside their area of expertise and often getting things hopelessly wrong. Freemon Dyson comes to mind.

    However I suppose the reason engineers are registered and accredited, is so the public can easily identify them as genuinely trained engineers, and because they are accountable for bridges that fall over etc,etc.

    Scientists services are not used daily by the general public, and it would be absurd to hold them accountable for coming up with a theory that is later disproven. That would kill off the entire science profession. (Im not suggestig you would be proposing that, just raising one of the issues). So its probably something we are stuck with, unless perhaps scientists who are working in an advisory capacity, are required to have some sort of registration or accreditation. That would make sense. And that would help make them wise up and not talk complete nonsense like the gang of 5 producing the CWG report.

    My understanding is the DOE / CWG report was dumped as a reason to get rid of the endangerment finding because it wasn't put out for proper consultation, and didnt include enough balance in the group and because there were so many scientific criticisms of the report it may not have worked to help overturn the endangerment finding. Theres been much discussion of all this over at realclimate.org. You can find the articles easily enough they are still near the top of the pile.

    Some guy (or woman) called Data argued the entire DOE / CWG report was just a red herring to distract everyones attention from the allegedly more powerful general legal arguments against the endangerment but its just speculation. The report still had to be demolished both scientifically and on its process,  because it alone could have overturned the endangerment finding.

18. Bob Loblaw at 02:13 AM on 28 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    nigel @ 32:

    Prescriptive rules only work for known problems. Setting objectives and performance criteria also requires some knowledge of the types of problems that might occur: the "known unknowns".

    ...but I want to respond to your statement at the end of paragraph 1: "...sometimes it can be done by an independent engineer or other expert."

    The question then becomes "how do you identify an 'expert' in such a situation?" And this can bring us back to the question of the EPA or similar agencies and questions of pollution (and climate change). Who gets to be an expert, and how do we agree that such individuals are groups have actual expertise in the question at hand?

    In the case of building structures, it's easy to say "an engineer". But how do we identify "engineer"? Many countries (Canada included) rely on two stages of accreditation: taking the required courses at an accredited school of engineering, followed by some on-the-job experience and eventual registration in the identified engineering association. That then leads to the status of "Professional Engineer" (P.Eng.) and a stamp you can apply to your work. That stamp tells everyone "this is a recognized expert". And when you screw up, you can lose that accreditation (similar to a lawyer being disbarred) - because all your work is accompanied by that stamp identifying you as the "expert" involved. And part of the professional ethics require that you restrict the use of your stamp to work that you actually are trained to do.

    Science in general has no such formal professional designation. Anyone can claim to be a scientist. Yes, you can look at their academic training. Yes, you can look at their post-graduation activities to see what relevant experience they have. But there is no formal review of those qualifications. As a result, you can have atomic physicists or economists (to pull a couple of hypothetical examples out of a hat) claiming that they are more of an expert in climate science than someone who has spent decades training and researching in climate work.

    That's not to say that people can't learn new things after they finish school - but we don't have any formal accreditation process where we can independently determine that they actually have learned what they claim to have learned. And when they screw up and get things horribly wrong, there is no "Professional Scientist" stamp that we can take away and tell them "you're not allowed to call yourself a P.Sci. any more". They are free to testify before congressional committees, write "reports" for sympathetic political hacks running government agencies that ignore the vast majority of the actual science, and continue to claim "we're the only scientists that understand this".

    ...which is why the process of developing and reviewing regulations and such needs to be well-designed to make sure that "experts"  really are experts, and there is proper inclusion of the full range of reasonable opinions. The EPA had to pretty much bypass the "climate" report by the gang of five for some of those reasons: the legislation that governs the EPA specifies aspects of the process that were largely ignored by current EPA management in creating and guiding the gang of five's report.

    In your closing paragraph, you say "...but if we listen to experts and base decisions on evidence we can get that balance right." That is the best scientific practise, where open discussion and being willing to change one's mind in response to a complete examination of the evidence. But when you get into what is called "lawyers' science", where people take an adversarial approach, only want the decision-maker to listen to their evidence and not the opponent's, etc., that won't happen. (My guess is that this is where Eric is thinking about the failures of the legal system to come to good scientific decisions, on the other US Climate regulations thread.)

    ...but people need to elect politicians that want the system to work that way. The US system has become toxically tribal.

19. prove we are smart at 14:35 PM on 27 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    "but hes inescapable", I'll add exhausting too. Australias most trusted tv network the ABC has an interview with its american editor John Lyons on an aussies perspective living in Washington DC. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljRSDUp5CqM

20. nigelj at 11:54 AM on 27 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    And as for putting someone like Robert Kenedy Jnr in charge of the health system. Words fail me.

21. nigelj at 11:47 AM on 27 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    Bob @31

    Yes systems that rely purely on prescriptive rules are too restrictive and discourage innovation. That's one reason NZ moved away from local council prescriptive rules, and adopted The NZ building code. The NZBC is an objectives and performance criteria model, and allows for design form first principles for just about everything, with the design and calcs needing council approval, or sometimes it can be done by an independent engineer or other expert.

    As I stated we can still use the NZ standards which are essentially prescriptive rules. They are generally applicable to small buildings only. People mostly design houses using the NZ Standards. Very few people design a house or part of a house from first principles because its too expensive and time consuming getting approvals. The exception is when you need some steel structure within a house, as this is outside the scope of The NZ Standards. But you would be brave to do it for the plumbing system. So innovation tends to be driven with large buildings where design from fist principles is more common.

    And one of the ironies is even when one uses design from first principles, Council are very tough scrutinising this to protect their own backsides I suppose. There's no magic building regulations system, but NZs approach combines prescriptive rules and performance criteria, and is certainly ok, and probably as good as it gets, and yours sounds similar.

    Yes Oceangate seemed like the designer was very arrogant and contemptuous of the rules and need for approvals. Reminds me of myself at a young age but most people grow up.

    And yes I've also noticed Trump is destroying process and wants total power for himself. I think we are better off having checks and balances. The political decision making process in America and to a lesser extent in NZ, does seem to have been in a sort of grid lock in recent years but IMHO that's not so much due to a bad process, and checks and balances, as a very divided country not sure which way to go. Its like society is at some sort of tipping point. But I don't think we should be solving that problem by electing power mad tyrants and mad men.

    New Zealands current right wing government is cutting regulations. Some of this looks ideologically driven. Some of its allegedly on wasteful regulations. Except the government hasn't found any significant examples. The government has also fired thousands of public servants. The excuses are waste, but they have never provided hard evidence. And another reason has been to cut government deficits, but government debt is really quite low as a % gdp, so it just looks ideologically driven.

    Of course I fully acknowledge its possible to over regulate and have over staffed bureaucracies, but the government hasn't really provided great proof of either. If you want to see genuine over regulation parts of Europe might be examples. But really I'm not a fan of the very small government self regulation ideology, because it just doesn't work. History has repeatedly shown that. And theres plenty of evidence that regulations drive innovation.

    I suppose its ultimately a balancing act between under and over regulation, but if we listen to experts and base decisions on evidence we can get that balance right. Its so sad watching Trumps America turn its back on experts, and on a need for regulations. That is never going to end well.

22. Bob Loblaw at 02:47 AM on 27 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    Eric @ 15:

    Thanks for the clarification. Yes, I think the last sentence in the OP is a little vague. It could mean "Oh, Gawd. The states and Congress will muck this up and never do anything." Or it could mean "We have an opening for the states and Congress to take action."

    The downside of action at the individual state level is patchwork of regulations that makes interstate commerce difficult and/or expensive. And it makes for "that's not my problem" decisions if Ohio decides they love coal and hate New York. Canada was also a recipient of acidic winds from places in the US. Canada and the US did agree to bilateral action on the issue (both reduction and monitoring).

    And interstate patchworks are even more difficult at the international level. Too many times I've heard the argument "Canada only produces 2% of the world's CO2. It won't make any difference if we cut it all." My response is "Yes, and the rest of the world consists of 49 other regions that also only contribute 2% of the total. They can make the same excuse, and then nothing happens." It's the poster child for tragedy of the commons.

    Controlling emissions also can't be done pragmatically on a patchwork basis. Everyone has an excuse why their industry should not be limited, or should get extra credits. Carbon taxes (or "fee and dividend"), carbon credits and cap-and-trade systems. All will fail when only applied locally. Taxes are avoided by relocating production to low- or no-tax jurisdictions. Cap-and-trade requires a market large enough to provide sufficient flexibility.

    Going slowly is better than not going at all, but going too slowly won't get us where we need to go. (When I was a grad student, we were at the pub one Friday evening. My office-mate was supposed to meet his girlfriend at 7pm, but as 7pm approached he decided to stay for another beer or two. He said "I'm late already; it won't matter if I'm even later." On Monday morning, when I arrived at the office, his first words were "Remember when I said Friday night it didn't matter if I was even later? I was wrong.")

23. Bob Loblaw at 02:17 AM on 27 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    nigel:

    I think there are fairly well-established international codes for plumbing, electrical work, etc. But of course "international" does not mean "ubiquitous". And I have no idea of the history of what came first, what was based on what, etc., when it comes to national and regional codes.

    Building codes are an interesting mix of prescriptive rules ("Thou shalt do ...") and more flexible statements ("Thou shalt hire an expert [engineer] who knows what is involved and can design something for you that won't fall down...") My basement permits required submitting drawings to the city on what I proposed to do. As I was just dividing up existing space with non-load-bearing walls, adding insulation, plumbing, etc., I did not need engineering drawings. I was leaving existing structure intact. Taking out existing walls would have required engineering calculations to confirm that I wasn't doing a Bad Thing™. (And a more thorough review by the permit department - likely by an engineer.)

    Prescriptive rules work for well-established solutions. Flexibility is needed to make room for innovation and unexpected problems. An overly-restrictive set of rules leads to a situation where nobody is willing to make a decision and people look for rules to tell them what to do (too common in government, from my personal experience). It also leads to cases where people simply decide to ignore rules to get stuff done - and once they get used to breaking small rules, it gets easier to break big rules.

    ...but we're probably all familiar with the OceanGate submersible accident. The owner of the company thought he knew better than all the submersible experts and created an innovative design. (He also was innovative in finding a rationalization as to why he should not be subject to regulation by international standards of ship design.) What he succeeded in doing was turning himself and a few high-paying customers into puddles of goo on the ocean floor next to the Titanic.

    With respect to the OP and pollution regulation in general, obviously the legislative branch needs to be involved in setting the rules. (And where a Constitution exists, the legislative branch needs to obey those rules and adhere to any process that is needed if they want to change the Constitution). But once the rules are set, the executive branch needs to follow those rules, and avoid political interference in decisions. The horse-trading at political levels is destructive: 'I'll vote to support your desire to avoid poisoning your voters if you vote to build missile silos in my district. If I don't get my missile silo, your people can die (and I don't care)."

    As I mentioned earlier, there is the process, and the decision. A good process will lead to good decisions and respect for the process. A bad process will lead to bad decisions, and no respect for the process.

    Right now, in the US, it appears that the main priority of Trump et al is to destroy the process, destroy any legal control over decision making, and let a very small segment of the population (Trump, his sycophants, and the puppet-masters controlling him) make all the decisions in their own interest. The idea of "separation of powers" and "checks and balances" seems to be headed towards a state of "I want the powers separated so I have all the power and you have none", and "I want the balance tilted entirely towards me, while you write the checks".

    Canada is in a similar state to the way you describe NZ: mostly a professional public service appointed on merit; a judicial system appointed on merit, and independence from direct political control where needed. It is also our right wing that seems to have a higher concentration of "fire the public servants, get rid of regulation, more political control (or election) of judges, we admire Trump,  etc." But it is still a minority (albeit a vocal one at times). Nowhere near as bad as the US, though.

24. Eric (skeptic) at 21:59 PM on 26 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    Bob @8, when I first read the last sentence of the article I thought they were lamenting the need for states and Congress to do something.   Upon rereading perhaps they are considering that as a good option as I do.  As you saw, Roberts bascially says that issues like global climate stability are not juisticiable.  He says Mass has no standing as they cannot show a justiciable (physically consequential) connection from lack of EPA vehicle regulation to their coastline.

    Your conclusion "That seems to represent an opinion that the tragedy of the commons is fine with him [Roberts]" is correct.  That was basically the reason for the Clean Air Act: pollution in Ohio causing acid rain in New York.  Thus the remedy for tragedy of the commons is legislation, not a pretense of justiciability.  Keeping 2007 as precedent?  That means more special solicitude for environmental cases with courts wading even further into scientific questions.  

    My wording was inexact, I should have said: "numeric standards for CO2 emissions".  Texas (e.g.) will point out the current economic benefits of their higher emissions. Massachusetts will argue for future global benefits of their ongoing energy transition.  Since both of those numbers are rather small, they will probably settle on a 2050 numeric standard approach and put some more money into transition.  Maybe 2040 since 2030 is too close at hand.  I would propose R&D money and let the emissions standards decrease more gradually.

    I realize the consensus here is against gradual approaches.  We'll never agree on that.

25. prove we are smart at 13:26 PM on 26 February 2026
    Fossil fuel pollution’s effect on oceans comes with huge costs
    

    "The Trump EPA buries its head in the eroding sand". I will argue the Trump admin has its head up and looking around to take many more "donations" from any billionaires wanting to pay for an advantage.

    Its not limited to only one party either, www.youtube.com/shorts/qzYTN4lfEn4

    Coral reefs are ecosystems whose collapse signals that multiple planetary boundaries are being exceeded simultaneously. All are under worstening die-back, some disapearing faster, today, some corals survive in much warmer waters in the Red Sea than on the Great Barrier Reef. The concern is therefore not strictly the temperature but the pace at which the temperature is rising above what corals in specific regions have adapted to over longer time periods.

    The current rate of environmental change, and dramatic increase in the frequency of bleaching events in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022, 2024 and 2025 (before then mass bleaching occurred in 2002 and 1998), raise concerns that most reef-building coral will not be able to adapt fast enough.

    Our Australian summary. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJRBYPhKnXA&t=1s

    Really, the only glimmer of hope I have for the USA is how the citizens of New York, rejected corporate politics and elected a self proclaimed democratic socialist. I can naively wish.

26. nigelj at 12:31 PM on 26 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    Bob Loblaw @ 02:00 AM on 26 February, 2026

    BL: "What you describe for building codes is similar to what we have in Canada"

    I have a vague recollection NZ actually modeled its building code on a combination of Canadas and Americas. Prior to about 1992 NZ didn't have a national building code as such. Local city councils had their own sets of rules on how houses had to be constructed. They did use the NZ standards which had been around for ages, and were effectively a national set of guidelines. But the net result is every city had its own building rules and they were all a bit different and confusing and they were very prescriptive.

    In 1992 the government adopted a national building code with more of a performance based approach. Councils could not set local rules except in very limited circumstances. Its all been good but with some problems as well.

    BL: "I had to get two permits and deal with two inspection processes: electrical, and everything else."

    In NZ local city councils check drawings and issue building consents, and do all inspections including electrical. We are too small for regions. I think the sign off process has altered recently, I've lost track a bit.

    BL: "When you say "signed off by Governments Cabinet", I assume that you mean the collection of ministers appointed by the Prime Minister (PM) to run the different government departments. (NZ is like Canada - following the Westminster system. We have an elected House of Commons, and an appointed Senate. It looks like you only have an elected house?)In practice, many decisions made within our government require sign-off by the Minister, but I don't think there are many (if any) that require sign-off by cabinet."

    Yes we have the Westminster system. To be honest I'm not 100% sure whether something like a building code needs sign off by a minister or all of cabinet. I'm fairly sure some things need sign of by all of cabinet.

    BL: "Some politicians and voters that disagree with government actions are convinced that the entire public service consists of partisan hacks working for the other political party......We're wandering much off-topic here, but to tie this back into the OP and what is happening in the US and the EPA, the US is devolving into a situation where large swaths of the "public" service are becoming political service."

    I've only seen a very few people in NZ suggest the public service are partisan hacks. Generally appointments appear to be on merit. We certainly haven't had a leader like Trump making blatantly partisan appointments. But right now it would not be possible. The heads of public service departments are appointed by the Public Service Commissioner and his office. he PSC is appointed by the Governor General. NZ is still technically a monarchy. Politicians are consulted on appointments, but don't decide the appointments.

    The problem is some of our conservative and right leaning politicians clearly admire some of what Trump has done. They don't embrace Trump like your conservative and right leaning politicians, but there is some leaning towards him particularly with Winston Peters of NZ First. But fortunately they would have a hell of a difficult job changing the system to allow them to make partisan appointments to the PS.

    The thing with Trump is all he has to do is get personal control of the police and army by getting their loyalty, and he can do anything. I honestly think he's trying to do that, and ICE is the first move in that direction. Hopefully he's out of office before he can do this. Ok all getting a tad off topic. But Trump has such monumental influence I think its worth some discussion. I had decided to ignore reading about him in his second term, but hes inescapable. Agree with your views on him and his presidency.

27. Bob Loblaw at 11:50 AM on 26 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    OPOF:

    Our paths must have come close to crossing. I worked in an engineering consulting company in Calgary in 1981-82. Through the peak of the boom you talk about, and into the bust that happened in 1982. The company I worked for shed many employees in those last few months. Many (like me) had moved to Calgary for the work opportunities, but as they lost their jobs in late 1982 they could not sell their houses for what they owed the bank. Not because they were poor employees or incapable or unmotivated - just simply because world events dealt them a losing poker hand.

    I was fortunate in the sense that I found opportunities elsewhere before the axe fell on me. The company I had worked for went bankrupt a few years later and the remnants merged with a more successful company. I think the original name has disappeared into the history books, as a result of further mergers and takeovers.

28. One Planet Only Forever at 07:49 AM on 26 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    Bob Loblaw @11,

    That is a good story to share.

    One of my favourite examples to share about 'being fortunate - lucky' is that I graduated from University when things were booming in Alberta as a result of the late 1970s global energy crisis (record high oil prices in 1980). As a result, I was able to prove my abilities for several years before global events temporarily ruined the global oil industry (oil prices dropping significantly by 1986). I was always employed at a good salary level until I retired. Many people who graduated after I did struggled to have steady high paying employment. It wasn't that they were less intelligent, less capable, or less motivated. It was simply the timing of their graduation from University.

29. Bob Loblaw at 02:00 AM on 26 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    nigel @ 28:

    What you describe for building codes is similar to what we have in Canada (where OPOF and I both live, albeit in different provinces). We develop national building codes, but provinces are the ones that control building practises, so they will make their own codes. They usually follow the national codes, but may adapt them to local circumstances.

    To further devolve responsibility, provinces usually transfer the process of inspection, approval of plans, etc. down to the municipal level (cities, regions, etc.) Thus, it is local government that will have people that examine and approve plans, issue building permits, perform inspections, etc. In my province, electrical inspections are handled by a province-wide agency, but plumbing (including HVAC) and structural inspections are by the city. So, when I wanted to finish my basement, I had to get two permits and deal with two inspection processes: electrical, and everything else.

    When you say "signed off by Governments Cabinet", I assume that you mean the collection of ministers appointed by the Prime Minister (PM) to run the different government departments. (NZ is like Canada - following the Westminster system. We have an elected House of Commons, and an appointed Senate. It looks like you only have an elected house?)

    In practice, many decisions made within our government require sign-off by the Minister, but I don't think there are many (if any) that require sign-off by cabinet. As I mentioned in earlier comments, at this point a Minister is acting as a member of the Executive branch, using powers and authority granted to ministers by Parliament - i.e. acting according to law. If a Minister wants to do something that is outside their authority, they'd have to take it to cabinet and the PM and argue that it needs to be taken before Parliament and a new law passed. A common example of "not your authority" would be when a minister wants to do something that law says is the responsibility of a different department - or perhaps a provincial responsibility according to our Constitution.

    Within our system, deputy ministers (DM) are the ones that run the day-to-day operation of the department. These appointments are at the will of the politicians (minister, cabinet, PM) and can (and will) be changed as political winds change. As you move down through the bureaucracy to assistant deputy ministers (ADM; there will be several in a department, responsible for different branches), directors general (DG), directors, managers, etc. At each lower level, there will be more people at that level, responsible for smaller parts of the system. At each level, their authority is limited to what the Minister delegates to that level, which is largely controlled by the rules set in place by Parliament (AKA "the law").

    Only the few at the top are political appointees, though. ADMs, DGs, etc are expected to be non-partisan, merit-based appointments. Most will survive a change in government, as the political masters at the top accept that these people will give non-partisan advice (although the major job description remains "don't embarrass the minister").

    Things fail (and there is worry about this) when political motives spread downwards into the "non-partisan" public service. Some politicians and voters that disagree with government actions are convinced that the entire public service consists of partisan hacks working for the other political party. (Some believe that the public service does nothing, and they should all be fired.) As distrust grows, and more and more appointees are selected based on political motives, the harder it is to get "expert advice".

    We're wandering much off-topic here, but to tie this back into the OP and what is happening in the US and the EPA, the US is devolving into a situation where large swaths of the "public" service are becoming political service. The US cabinet is not elected - it is appointed by the president. In theory, Congress needs to approve these, but more and more confirmation votes go entirely down party lines. The president wants the authority to fire many employees in the public service, and has shown a propensity to replace them with political hacks. He wants them to swear an oath of allegiance to the president, not the constitution. He does not want the rule of law to constrain him, and he does not want a "public" service that serves the people or the law. IMHO, this is not a happy place to be.

    The question of "who gets to sign off on the regulations?" is only one very small part of "who gets to decide the process by which the regulations are developed?" To me, the elected officials are already in control of defining the process. If they don't like the outcome, they can re-define the process, but turning final decisions into a political football that can ignore any sort of reasonable process is not a good way to go.

30. John Hartz at 10:24 AM on 25 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    As documented in the two articles cited below, the Supreme Court will hear two critical cases re society's ability to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the damage it has done by releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We all will definitely want to closely track developments in these two cases as they occur.

    Supreme Court to Decide Key Issue in Fate of State and City Suits Against Oil Companies Over Climate Change The nation’s highest court has agreed to hear a case that raises questions about climate lawsuits across the country and amplifies concerns about the participation of Justice Samuel Alito, who holds significant fossil fuel investments. by Lee Lee Hedgepeth, Inside Climate News, Feb 23, 2026

    Excerpt:

    "The Supreme Court has previously resisted efforts to have the justices weigh in on climate litigation playing out across the country, but its announcement that it will hear the Colorado case signals a shift in that hands-off approach.

    This is not the only climate litigation on the court’s docket. In January, justices heard arguments on whether the court should overturn a landmark, $745 million jury verdict against Chevron, which Louisiana jurors found had contributed to the decline of the state’s shoreline and wetlands. That case is still pending, with a decision expected sometime before the court’s summer recess. "

    To access the entire article, go to:

    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23022026/supreme-court-looks-at-state-city-oil-climate-lawsuits/

    ______________________________________________________________________

    How Trump’s big climate finding repeal could actually hurt big oil Without federal climate regulation, fossil fuel industry may be more vulnerable to local lawsuits by Dharna Noor, The Guardian, Feb 24, 2026

    Excerpt:

    "The Trump administration’s repeal of a foundational climate determination could clear a path for new litigation and policies targeting big oil, legal experts say.

    Earlier this month, Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule revoking the “endangerment finding”, a 2009 determination that established that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. The move eliminated federal limits on climate-warming emissions from motor vehicles, and is expected to extend to all other pollution sources.

    Critics say the change was designed to reward oil companies, which poured record sums into Trump’s campaign. Ironically, it could also weaken a shield the fossil fuel industry has used against attempts to make it pay climate damages around the US.

    The future of that legal shield will soon face a major test as the supreme court considers a fossil fuel industry petition to quash a climate lawsuit filed by a Colorado city."

    To access the entire article, go to:

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/24/trump-climate-endangerment-repeal-oil-lawsuits

31. nigelj at 07:20 AM on 25 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    OPOF @26 talks about how structural design codes are formulated. In New Zealand we have a building code which deals with structure, waterproofing, plumbing etc,etc. Its focused on issues of safety and durability only not aesthetics etc,etc. Its essentially a set of regulations on what you can, and cant do.

    The building code is prepared by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) . The building code sets objectives and performance criteria. The code allows for acceptable solutions to these criteria and objectives. These can be provided in different ways. One way is for an engineer or other expert to do a design from first principles and submit this to a local government council for approval by their technical people.

    Another way is to base the design on prescriptive rules contained in the NZ Standards. Standards New Zealand are part of MBIE. Standards are written by technical committees of engineers, industry experts, councils, and other stakeholders. So there is industry input which is a little bit worrying but theres also something to be said by getting all stakeholders involved and this is a consultation issue. MBIE don't have to do what industry want.

    The final building code is signed off by the Governments Cabinet. Which is essentially an executive body. It is not signed off by Parliament. We have a Building ACT which is quite general in nature, and voted on in parliament. The ACT ultimately requires a detailed building code.

    If people hate what the government is doing with the building code they can of course elect another government.

    Not wanting to restart my comments on the regulations related to the CO2 issue, but its just the huge implications of this issue that made me wonder if some sort of sign off of regulations should be done by parliament / congress. The Republicans talk about the major questions doctrine. But I can certainly see the arguments against all this and I dont have a firm view either way on the issue. One thing I think we all agree on and have firm views on is the details have to be left to the experts.

    Given the endangerment finding is in considerable danger, fortunately with the climate change issue there are other ways to regulations of mitigating the problem such as carbon taxes, cap and trade and subsidies. I've always thought the regulatory approach to mitigate the climate problem,  would become a complicated nightmare, and bogged down in arguments about who gets to sign off the regulations. 

32. Bob Loblaw at 06:50 AM on 25 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    OPOF: "every poor person does not deserve their fate."

    I am going to tell a story I find myself telling more and more often these days.

    In 1968, my father travelled back to Saskatchewan (western Canada) for his father's funeral. My father, born in 1920, had grown up in rural Saskatchewan through the Great Depression. My grandfather was one of the lucky ones, having a job running the town grain elevator through the 1930s.

    At the funeral, a woman that had grown up in the same town in the same years came up to my father and said "Our family always looked up to your father so much. Back in the '30s, when our father was out of work, he knew that at the most desperate times he could go to your father, who would find him some work to do at the elevator to earn a dollar or two. It meant so much to us."

    My father said that he realized that this woman (and her family) never knew one important thing: the company that ran the elevator had no money in the 1930s to hire casual labour. That dollar or two came from my grandfather's pocket, who knew that he was lucky and that her father was just down on his luck (like many, many others in the 1930s).

    Also important: my grandfather found a way to give that money to a neighbour in a way that the neighbour could keep his honour and dignity: he was able to work for the money, and it was coming from "the company" - not a handout/charity from my grandfather.

    I'd like to think that some of my grandfather's values have been passed down through my father to me.

33. One Planet Only Forever at 06:04 AM on 25 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    Re Bob Loblaw's comment @9 and the related comments preceding it:

    George Soros is evidence that not all billionaires are harmful sociopaths. And the many billionaires participating in misleading marketing attacks on George Soros are evidence that many billionaires are harmful sociopaths.

    In addition to the 'hard to justify' belief that every billionaire deserves to be so rich compared to Others, it is fairly obvious that every poor person does not deserve their fate.

    In addition to the books mentioned by Bob Loblaw, check out Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo's 2019 book "Good Economics for Hard Times" (Wikipedia link). For the benefit of those who have not heard of this pair of authors, the Wikipedia page mentions that just prior to publishing this book they were "... jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, shared with Harvard University professor Michael Kremer"

34. Bob Loblaw at 05:36 AM on 25 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    OPOF @26:

    You often talk in terms of "harm to others" and personality types that do (or do not) see that as something that should not be allowed. I'm sure that some react to your writings as "he wants to control things that others do" - sort of a "he wants the world structured his way" kind of dominance.

    ...but in this post, as I read it, I see your position as one where nobody has the right to force harm on others. As such, I see it as a call to Freedom - each person needs to be free from others causing them harm.

    Although you talk of not wanting power by "popularity contest" or "popular opinion", I do not see your post as being a call against democracy. I see it as a recognition that even those in the minority have rights. We cannot allow "the tyranny of the majority".

    Many countries have some sort of charter of rights built into their laws or constitution - often based on the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 1 states:

    All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

    This encompasses your frequent call to not cause "harm to others". By saying "all human beings", the UN declaration is meant to apply to each individual human being, even if a minority of one. I can't infringe on their rights. My gang can't infringe on their rights. My government can't infringe on their rights. My elected representatives can't infringe on their rights.

    I like your example of structural design and building codes. I am not an engineer, but I have worked with many. For a while I also worked along side people that were responsible for updating and maintaining weather-related data for building designs - things like roof snow loads, precipitation records for building and road design, etc.

    These are rules that must be followed ("regulations", in a way), and carry with them a significant cost factor. But the codes did not need approval of politicians. The people I knew sat in on the committees that developed the codes. Industry participated, but did not have final say. Code did not tell industry "this is how you have to build a roof", but it did say "you need to make it this strong". Industry is then free to be creative in how they design a roof - but within the limits of code.

    I agree with how you describe the role of elected representatives: assuring that there is a robust, rigorous decision-making process where all affected voices may be heard (usually called "stakeholders"), but there is a priority on finding a balanced solution that respects the needs of all. You'll never please everyone, but if the displeasure is limited to a few highly selfish individuals or groups. then I think it can be discounted. The argument "that will cost too much; I don't care who dies if it collapses after the final cheque clears" should not be tolerated. There is no fundamental right to even greater profit that overshadows someone else's right to life.

    Nigel has indicated that he wants to conclude our back-and-forth, so I won't beat that horse any more. (Even that horse has rights...) I will point out that the same issues OPOF raises in terms of building codes, etc. apply to pollution levels, etc. Much of the devil is in the details. As OPOF points out, unless you have a very clear understanding of the problem, the "fix" you put into place is destined to failure. An essential part of the "fix" is to make sure that the process of developing regulations is well controlled, rather than just the result.

35. One Planet Only Forever at 04:10 AM on 25 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    I wish to add to my comment @15. It relates to the interesting discussion between nigelj and Bob Loblaw. It is in response to nigelj @17 comment that “… its up to the public to decide who they give power to.”

    Like Bob Loblaw states @16, “I don’t have a fix.” But, as an Engineer, I appreciate that figuring out how to solve a challenge starts with developing a robust understanding of the challenge. Without a thorough robust understanding of a ‘problem needing to be fixed’ it is likely that what is believed to be a fix is likely to fail. That can be understood to mean that pursuits of personal interest that are not governed by the pursuit of learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others are likely to result in dangerous harmful misunderstandings being popular.

    It is important to understand that issues where there is potential harm to Others cannot be allowed to be ‘decided by power obtained through a popularity contest’, even if the matter is a major public interest issue. It can be argued that the more potential for harm to Others the more important it is that the decisions not be ‘governed by popular opinion’. A related point would be that when there is the potential for ‘harm to Others beyond a reasonable doubt’ the legal system should block the potentially harmful actions until a more rigorous understanding is developed regarding the harm. And it is equally important to understand that ‘it is not harmful to curtail or limit the obtaining of economic benefit from harmful and potentially harmful actions’.

    A clear example of this is the adequacy of structure designs. The adequacy of the designs should not be determined by popularly elected representatives. Elected representatives do need to ‘legislate building codes and material design codes’ to ensure a legal motivation for ‘safe design’. But, in addition to being the originators of the detailed content of those legislated rules of law, responsible engineers should ‘self-govern that way’, including constantly improving the detailed understanding and presentation of the codes and standards. Also, if the structural engineering community becomes aware that some existing structures are more dangerous than they should be (because of a harmful misunderstanding or lack of awareness during design and construction or deterioration of condition over time) then those structures should have their use limited, including termination of use, until the problem is effectively understood and corrected.

    Specialists in the design of safe structures and experts in each of the many potential types of materials (Steel, Concrete, Wood, Aluminum, ...) need to be relied upon to develop adequate design codes and standards without influence from elected representatives (popularity driven) or industry representatives (profit driven). It would be harmful to allow proponents of one type of building system or material to influence the requirements for competing alternative systems and materials. As an example, Steel proponents should not influence the requirements for Concrete design, and vice versa. And both the steel and Concrete design requirements should produce comparably safe results.

    Competition for benefit can tempt people away from being helpful Type 1) people. It encourages people to be more harmful Type 2) people. Obviously, it can be very damaging when competitors for benefit, status, profit and popularity are allowed to influence what is allowed to be gotten away with.

    Elected representatives need to be excluded from having influence on the details, including in high level significant legal requirements like Building Codes and questions of pollution. The role of the elected representatives should be restricted to ensuring that a robust rigorous effort isolated from political, popularity or profit motive influence is performed by experts who have a proven history of dedication to learning what is harmful in order to limit harm done and be more helpful to Others – experts who will produce sustainable and constantly improving developments for the future of humanity.

    As I said at the beginning of this comment. ‘I do not have a fix’. But I think the problem is the reluctance of people to understand the ‘inevitable significant harm that will be produced by poorly governed competition for popularity, profit and status’. Democracy and capitalism can easily devolve into authoritarian tyrannical plutocracy.

36. Bob Loblaw at 01:34 AM on 25 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    prove @ 7:

    I would generally be of the opinion that not all billionaires are sociopaths, but clearly some are. It is an open question as to whether the proportion of sociopaths in the billionaires' club is more than, equal to, or less than the proportion in the general population. But only a few is enough to be a problem in a political system running on billionaires' dollars.

    There is a strong sense that many in that club think they are there because they deserve it. (The billionaires' club, not the sociopaths' club.) Nothing to do with luck, birthright, unethical behaviour, or anything like that.

    Meyer's Dark Money, and Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century make for interesting reading. Meyer for a look into how billionaires are getting their hooks into the political system. Piketty for a look into how income and wealth inequality have changed over the past century or so, and the direction it is taking today.

37. Bob Loblaw at 01:18 AM on 25 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    Eric @ 6:

    I'm not sure exactly which "conclusion is basically backwards". I'm not even sure if you're responding to someone else's comment, or the OP itself. Can  you be more specific?

    You link to the 2007 decision. I've had a quick look. It is rather long. Is there a specific part that you think is particularly important?

    One thing that Roberts says in his dissent is that CO2 is basically a global issue. In the early part of that decision, it says "Roberts pointed out that much of the impetus behind global warming comes from foreign nations that have no environmental regulations." That seems to represent an opinion that the tragedy of the commons is fine with him.

    • How would your proposed "numeric standards for CO2" work? Local CO2 values can vary quite a bit depending on local emissions, local sinks, weather, season, etc. Away from local effects (e.g. Mauna Loa), levels are broadly global, and individual states can't do much. Putting a limit on raw CO2 level seems impractical.
    • If you are thinking of regulating emission quantities, how do allowable limits get set across states, industries, etc?
    • The Roberts dissent (from only a quick glance) seems to hinge on "courts don't belong here", with a healthy dose of "doubt is our product". I think you're correct that they don't want to put "doubt is our product" in writing too obviously.
    • I think the current court has made it pretty clear in decisions over the past few years that precedent is not a strong legal position in any case.
38. prove we are smart at 20:47 PM on 24 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    Just a reminder, just 1 billion is a 1000 million. The global billionaire population has continued to grow, reaching around 3,030 individuals in 2026, representing a 5% increase from the previous year.

    Billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime. www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaires-emit-more-carbon-pollution-90-minutes-average-person-does-lifetime?utm_source=copilot.com .

    From 5  "But remember not all powerful elites dont care. Plenty of billionaires accept the climate science and do some things to help improve the situation. I'm not sure scapegoating them for the problem helps very much."  Here is a start to help fix the problem of billionairs www.youtube.com/shorts/EybsPFDSWyU

39. Eric (skeptic) at 18:59 PM on 24 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    The conclusion is basically backwards.  The best case is for states to experiment with solutions and have Congress write laws to set numeric standards for CO2 just like they did for CO.  The worse case is to go to the Supreme Court and watch them rule 6-3 against the same thing they ruled 5-4 for in 2007.  It's pretty simple: decisions based on policy, or even worse, science, do not create strong legal precedent.  Please read the Roberts 2007 dissent that I will again link here: Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007)

    If the USSC decides a similar case, a 6-3 decision will hinge on Roberts 2007 logic both in deference to the legal issues and to Roberts himself.  The three liberal justices will maintain the Stevens argument and argue it's even more crucial today.  The other six may secretly harbor Scalia's merchandizing of doubt, but won't put that in writing.

    How will Congress pass those laws?  Good question, a simple majority in the House is inevitable thanks to my state of Virginia gerrymandering and anti-Trump sentiment.  60 votes can be purchased in the Senate by sending enough money to farmers regardless of party control.

40. nigelj at 11:52 AM on 24 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    pwas: "Thanks for that link JH, it descibes the dire,existential situation this wretched leader and his morally compromised party,enablers and administration are willing to put society into.You have to ask why? They have kids, grandkids-immediate close family and friends too."

    You almost answered your own question in your first post: “The real conspiracy is that the rich think that they don't have to live in the same world as the rest of us....." Its not just that the rich may think they are above the law.The rich probably think they can buy their way out of the consequences of climate change and other environmental problems. And they will leave plenty of money to the grand kids. And to a large extent they can.

    I think its a corruption of wealth thing. I am  financially rather secure so climate change wont hurt me too much, but I dont like that it will hurt large parts of the world and the low income people. But if I was super rich I can imagine I might become so confident climate change can't affect me at all, and I might become so self entitled and detached from the real world, I stop caring about the ordinary folks. None of us are completely immune to the effects of huge wealth and power.

    But remember not all powerful elites dont care.  Plenty of billionaires accept the climate science and do some things to help improve the situation. I'm not sure scapegoating them for the problem helps very much.

41. nigelj at 11:27 AM on 24 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    Bob, I do acknowledge it would be difficult apportioning which pollutant decisions require legislative approval and which could be completely left to the EPA to do its thing. So you get the last say with your previous comment. I'm out of energy for any more anyway.

    Trumps deep distrust of science might be psychological projection. Hes so incredibly dishonest himself he assumes everyone else is. 

    The effects of his presidency on American science look quite crippling. Last months Economist Journal has a good article on the issue. I dont have a link because I buy the paper version for the coffee table.

42. prove we are smart at 06:25 AM on 24 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    Thanks for that link JH,it descibes the dire,existential situation this wretched leader and his morally compromised party,enablers and administration are willing to put society into.

    You have to ask why? They have kids, grandkids-immediate close family and friends too. The lifestyle of so many of us is over in its current form as more planetary boundaries collapse under the shadow of the human polluting green house gases ever increasing. 

    You have to think the powerful elites feel distanced and immune from the worlds common folks issues but greed and power must also blind. 

43. John Hartz at 02:49 AM on 24 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    Recommended supplenmetal reading:

    The reckless repeal of the Endangerment Finding, Opinion by John Holdren*, Union of Concerned Scientists, Feb 19, 2026

    *Dr. Holdren is Teresa and John Heinz Research Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and Faculty Co-Chair of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program in the School’s Belfer Cener for Science and International Affairs. From 2009 to 2017, he was the Science Advisor to President Obama and Senate-confirmed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

    Excerpt:
    "The 2009 finding by the EPA that emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare—the Endangerment Finding—is the legal basis for the EPA to regulate those emissions; last week, the Trump administration rescinded the finding. If the recission survives the inevitable legal challenges, it will lead to the EPA dismantling essentially all of its regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions, most notably those from cars and trucks as well as from power plants and other stationary sources."

    Holden pulls no punches in this article To access the entire opinion piece, go to:

    https://thebulletin.org/2026/02/the-reckless-repeal-of-the-endangerment-finding/

44. Bob Loblaw at 01:13 AM on 24 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    There is a fourth option: repeal or modify the Clean Air Act and/or the act that created the EPA (assuming it is different).

    ...but that would require putting their true intent front and centre, where voters can see it. And they'd need enough votes in both the House and the Senate, where the politicians need to think if that will affect getting re-elected. Better to do it by stealth, where you leave the laws intact and just try to choke the $%^# out of it. By the time the courts intervene, you'll need a nuclear power plant to power the AED that you'd need to resuscitate action.

45. Bob Loblaw at 01:02 AM on 24 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    nigel:

    First, I didn't find the term "elected politicians" confusing. It's just that I'd forgotten you had added "elected" within the meat of the text, and I was in the mind set where a lot of "politicians" are outside the small set that are actually holding elected office.

    The problem I see with your "let the legislature vote" aspect is that it seems completely impractical to me. The legislature can only vote on matters that the constitution allows. (Well, they can vote on other things, but then the judicial system is supposed to void that vote when someone challenges it in court.) Once the legislature votes, that vote becomes law. Saying "let the legislature vote" is basically saying "to do this, we need a new law".

    The problem is that it seems highly unlikely that you can design any effective process where it becomes easy to identify that a particular pollutant (in this case) is one that is important enough to require that legislative approval. Any simple metric will fail, in my mind. How does environmental damage show up  in GDP? And then you need to codify that into law ("legislature votes").

    The Canadian legislation that I am familiar with requires that costs, impact on different sectors of the economy, etc. are all considered when proposing regulations. There are always trade-offs. The example that I am most familiar with is the banning of ozone-depleting CFCs. When the bans were implemented, exceptions were made for industries where there were no alternatives (or excessively-expensive ones).

    The "let the legislature vote" risks excessive micro-management. I have seen the effects on government efficiency when politicians decided that "responsible management" meant requiring authorization at higher and higher levels. Middle management becomes a relay service shuffling requests upstream and answers (if you get one) downstream. Decisions end up getting made by people at the top who are not at all familiar with the issues. (Yes, I would put many politicians into that class. They are limited in number, and even their collective knowledge cannot make them experts on everything.)

    A huge question is the issue of trust. If you can't trust the administrative branch to make a good decision, can you trust them to make a good recommendation? Can you trust them to do a thorough job in examining the issue and providing the politicians with a balanced summary? If you don't trust them, then what other sources of information can be used to enable the politicians to make an informed decision?

    [I suspect we agree that in the current US administration, the president doesn't trust anyone that questions him. And he doesn't trust science. And he doesn't trust anyone that he thinks "works for the Democrats", or "the deep state". We see in the recent EPA analysis just who they trust when it comes to climate science.]

    As for tracking the costs of regulations: that to me suggests the creation of a huge Rube Goldberg-like bureaucracy. Again, my government experience has exposed me to too may instances where the system is willing to spend thousands of dollars of  people's time to make sure that $100 was properly spent. I lived in a world of this XKCD comic:

    

46. prove we are smart at 16:10 PM on 23 February 2026
    After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?
    

    “The real conspiracy is that the rich think that they don't have to live in the same world as the rest of us, so they can let it burn and profit on the way down… These guys believe that they are above the rules. ”

    The elites just don't care about what is good or even legal. Roll back the climate regs to grift in petro bucks, genocide a nation for those enriched by the industrial military complex, invite other privileged persons to illegal immoral activities and no accountability because your corrupt lackies are in the admin. Justice, health, politics, media and others.

    The rollbacks occuring during this right-wing populous propaganda worldwide is money and power for all elites.

    That quote at the start is from a discussion by 2 of my favourite people talking about the big picture of why the system must change. The EPA roll-back gets a little mention, inequality breeds powerful people who will ruin the world-but only for us. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu1k_mzzwnU

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Please try to dial back the tone a little bit.

47. nigelj at 11:42 AM on 23 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    Bob Loblow @20

    BL: "You qualify that in your third paragraph by saying that the politicians should make the major decisions - but how do you decide what are the major decisions, and what decisions are not?........So, the law really needs to allow the executive branch to have some flexibility to look into "unknowns"."

    I'm suggesting that if a regulatory proposal is found to have a huge potential  impact on society like regulating CO2, the final determination of whether its a pollutant and needs regulations, and the final approval of such regulations should rest with the legislative branch by way of vote. Maybe the EPA should be required to apply a test, and it can do so at any stage the regulatory issue in the chain of assessment. Perhaps its possible to look at the likely impact of the regulation on the economy and say if its above level xyz it needs to go to the legislature. You could look at imapct on gdp or wages or whatever. It doesnt have to be something perfect , just enough to ensure the legislature gets the big issues to vote on, and not too many small issues to deal with.

    Perhaps look at the history of regulations going back a few decades and on the economic impacts and identify the costs of the 10% or 5%  of regulations with the greatest economic impacts and then this cost becomes the threshold  where any new regulations have to go to the legislature for final approval. That means the legislature aren't overburdened with too many to consider. 

    Even if things are left to the executive branch to figure out whether something is a pollutant, and they have the flexibility to look into unknowns, they can still be required to do the test I suggested, at some point in time when its appropriate.

    Sorry about my use of the term elected politicians. It was confusing.

48. Bob Loblaw at 05:46 AM on 23 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    nigel:

    Re-reading your comment 19, I see that are clearly using the phrase "elected politicians". It's not something I needed to assume, as I wrote in comment 20.

49. Bob Loblaw at 05:39 AM on 23 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    Semi-on-topic (which translates to semi-off-topic...)

    I just read an article at CNN that discusses the recent USSC decision on Trump's tariffs. A major question (and source of disagreement between the majority and minority positions of the nine justices) has to do with something called the "major questions doctrine". This has to do with questions of whether vague laws can be interpreted to grant wide discretion and authority to the executive branch (in this case, the President), or whether the executive branch can only take on authority that is clearly granted. (Read the article - it does a better job of explaining it.)

    The reason I'm posting this here is because I think it is central to nigel's and my views on delegation of decision-making authority in the context of pollution controls. Two-thirds of the USSC seem to think that even the President is expected to only use authority granted to him by either the constitution or by the legislative branch (where the constitution has given them the authority in question).

    Food for thought when reading my previous comment about legislative vs executive branch decision-making.

50. Bob Loblaw at 03:20 AM on 23 February 2026
    Trump just torched the basis for federal climate regulations. Here’s what it means.
    

    Nigel:

    Your second paragraph kind of contradicts itself. You say that the decisions on whether a chemical is an air pollutant should rest with the politicians, but you say you can't have politicians decide on every single chemical substance. [By "politicians", I am assuming that you mean "elected representatives".]

    You qualify that in your third paragraph by saying that the politicians should make the major decisions - but how do you decide what are the major decisions, and what decisions are not?

    The way that our democracies work (or not) is that the politicians (in the legislative branch) voice their decisions by enacting laws. Just as there are laws that control the actions of the general public, there are laws that control the actions of government. The legislators (politicians) are not allowed to contact the administration and tell them what to do. (Speaking from personal experience, if a Canadian politician wants to visit a federal government research site, he has to ask the Minister to arrange it.)

    On the executive side (the administration), absolutely everything that is done must be something that they are either commanded to do or allowed to do according to law. If a civil servant decides to do something (spend money, start a research program, set up an office), there has to be a clear track back to some sort of legislation that grants that authority to that civil servant (or to someone who can in turn delegate that authority to that individual). That civil servant is not allowed to decide completely on their own that they can spend government resources on something that the legislature has never, ever considered.

    To belabour the point further, let's go back to that "is this a pollutant or not?" question. Let's assume that no current legislation specifically identifies chemical X as a pollutant. This means that the politicians have not made any decision on it. Someone realizes that X has health implications. The government then says "hmmm. Maybe we should study that". Can they? Not if there is no legislation that gives them that authority. Should they need to wait for politicians to pass a law saying they can study it? A guaranteed way of making sure that nothing ever gets done.

    So, the law really needs to allow the executive branch to have some flexibility to look into "unknowns". The structure in government is that the more important the decision, the higher up the food chain it needs to go when decisions are made. The most obvious example is budgets. When in government, I had the authority to buy toilet paper when the buildings I looked after were running low. I did not have the authority to buy a new building when office space was running low.  I had decision-making authority over local toilet paper purchases. I did not need to ask the politicians.

    In Canada, ministers at the top of the executive branch food chain are also politicians, but they still keep those two hats separate. They can present laws to the legislature and get them passed, but as an executive, they are only allowed to command the ministry (executive branch) to do what the law allows. Their status as politicians does not change this. Any decisions they make may (will?) be done for political purposes, but a law still has to exist that gives them the authority to make that decision as a Minister.

    In the US, the secretary in charge of a department is usually not an elected politician. Any decisions they make are not being made by elected representatives (no matter how "political" that decision may be). Again, they should only make decisions on matters that legislation grants them the authority to make.

    To beat the drum of decision-making, the legislation that empowers anyone in this chain must clearly state what authorities are being delegated to what level, under what circumstances, and what sort of process must be followed in researching and making decisions (or recommendations). Saying that "the politicians [elected representatives] need to make this decision" basically means "this decision requires an Act of the legislative branch".

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