Read this op-ed by CMCL steering committee member and former Charlotte mayor, Jennifer Roberts, about federal updates to the Endangerment Finding and how they affect Charlotte. This op-ed was published in the Charlotte Observer on February 22, 2026.
“On February 12, the Trump Administration rescinded a scientific finding on climate change that
underscored the harm caused to both individual health and planetary health by carbon emissions. The
“endangerment finding” which was rescinded had served for nearly 2 decades as a guide to reducing
harmful greenhouse gas emissions in the US.
The Endangerment Finding, by the way, was issued in 2009 and has since been upheld by the DC Circuit
Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court, and most recently in 2025 by the National Academies of Sciences.
In addition, the Trump Administration ordered the Pentagon to buy coal-powered electricity. The
Pentagon is one of the largest consumers of electricity on the planet.
Now, the exhaust and emissions from vehicle tailpipes and power plants are no longer subject to federal
regulations. The EPA announcement claims it will save taxpayers “over $1.3 trillion” but fails to say how
many years it will take for those “savings” to be realized.
In reality, there are no savings, and this policy will cost all of us more.
First of all, electricity produced from coal is the most expensive of all forms. The cost of new coal
powered generation is $69 – $168 per megawatt hour (MWH). The cost of natural gas, also a fossil fuel
contributing to our warming planet, is $45 – $108 per MWH for combined cycle but $110 – $228/MWH
for peaker plants. The cost of wind or solar is markedly less, and has been going down over the last
several years: Onshore wind costs $27 – $73 per MWH, while solar varies from $38 – $92 per MWH.
(Source: Lazard, one of the world’s largest financial and asset management advisory firms).
Consumers have already been seeing their utility bills rising, and this change will accelerate that. In
addition, going forward, coal plants cost more to run in maintenance and fuel costs, whereas sunshine is
still free. There are additional hazards with natural gas and coal, ranging from the cost of building miles
of underground pipelines, subject to leaks to explosions, to the costs of storage tank leakage and the
clean-up of coal ash spills. Over the last 20 years, there have been 10–12 fatalities and over 50 injuries
per year from gas plants and pipelines. A major gas pipeline incident (mass leak, explosion, and/or fire)
occurs every 11 days in the US. I think we all know that solar panels do not explode.
And there is more to the human cost of fossil fuels. A CDC map of Charlotte (federal govt data) that
measures the incidence of chronic respiratory illnesses in the “Crescent,” the areas of town that lie
along the emission-producing highways of 77, 85 and 74, shows that COPD and asthma rates are 2-4
times higher than areas away from these major highways, such as the “Wedge.”
And coal emissions not only leave a fine black dust on your porch furniture, they do the same to your
lungs, contributing to lung disease. Nationally, There have been 460,000 American deaths linked to coal
pollution in the past 20 years. Coal PM2.5 (that is the size of the particulate matter in the air) is twice as
deadly as other air pollution. (Henneman et al., Science, 2023)
Finally, this new policy is not supporting US jobs. The coal industry is not a major employer.
Currently it employs 44,000 people, whereas the clean energy sector employs 3.5 million.
The Trump Administration’s removal of the endangerment finding is actually endangering all of
us, with our health, our wallets, and our livelihoods. We hope that auto manufacturers and utility
companies – who take years to develop new products – will see this as temporary, and continue
to hold their emissions steady. Our children’s and our planet’s future depend on that long term
view.”