President Donald Trump's administration will on Tuesday move to reverse a foundational scientific determination that underpins the US government's ability to curb climate change, Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin announced.

Appearing on the right-wing "Ruthless Podcast," Zeldin said: "Later today, we're going to be making a big announcement in Indiana" about the so-called Endangerment Finding of 2009, which concluded that greenhouse trapping gases from motor vehicles were a threat to public health and welfare.

Zeldin accused the Environmental Protection Agency under former president Barack Obama of taking "mental leaps," when developing the finding based on overwhelming scientific consensus and peer-reviewed research.

Agreeing with a podcast host who called the finding a "hub to the spoke of the left's environment agenda," Zeldin said: "This has been referred to as basically driving a dagger into the heart of the climate change religion."

"Conservatives love the environment, want to be good stewards of the environment," he continued. 

But "there are people who then, in the name of climate change, are willing to bankrupt the country in the name of environmental justice."

The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

The Endangerment Finding granted the EPA power to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act and served as the legal backbone for a range of climate rules, extending beyond vehicles to power plant standards to methane limits on oil and gas operations.

According to a recent analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council, if it were a country, the US transportation sector would rank as the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases globally, while the power sector would be fifth.

Dan Becker of the Center for Biological Diversity told AFP the Endangerment Finding has survived multiple legal challenges by industry over the years. "But this time, it's the government itself mounting the attack," he said.

Environmental groups and states are expected to sue quickly. The legal battle could ultimately reach the Supreme Court, which would have to overturn its own 2007 ruling that paved the way for the Endangerment Finding.

"Hopefully they will recognize that this is science and not politics — that there was a good reason for that precedent and no good reason to revoke it," said Becker. "But this is a very political court."

Since returning to office, Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement on global warming and launched a sweeping campaign to expand fossil fuel development, including new moves this week to open ecologically sensitive areas of Alaska to drilling.

The announcement comes as the planet swelters under historic levels of warming. Tens of millions of Americans are baking under a brutal heat dome gripping the Southeast, while climate-fueled floods killed more than 100 people in Texas earlier this month.

by Issam Ahmed