Writing in Breitbart News — the conservative website formerly run by Mr. Trump’s senior strategist, Stephen K. Bannon — James Delingpole, a writer who is close to Mr. Bannon, said<br />that if Mr. Pruitt refused to undo the endangerment finding, “it will represent a major setback for President Trump’s war with the Climate Industrial Complex.”<br />“If Scott Pruitt is not up to that task, then maybe it’s about time he did the decent thing and handed over the reins to someone who is,” he added.<br />Last month, as Mr. Trump prepared to release an executive order directing Mr. Pruitt to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, along with nearly every other major element of Mr.<br />Obama’s climate change legacy, Mr. Pruitt argued against including a repeal of the endangerment finding in the order, according to people familiar with the matter.<br />Legal experts say they can see why opponents of climate change policy want to go after the endangerment finding<br />— as long as it remains in place, any efforts to undo climate regulations can always be reversed.<br />Thus, climate policy experts on both sides of the debate say, even if Mr. Pruitt succeeds in the legally challenging process of withdrawing<br />the Clean Power Plan, the endangerment finding will still put him under the legal obligation to put together a replacement regulation.<br />They want him to uproot the whole thing.”<br />But, Mr. Lazarus added, “as a matter of legal strategy, it makes little sense, because the endangerment finding is very strong.”<br />The original recommendation to make an endangerment finding on carbon dioxide emissions<br />was made by Stephen L. Johnson, a career scientist who led the E. P.A.
