Will President Donald Trump allow gasoline producers to put lead back in petrol? Will he declare by executive order fuel engines no longer need catalytic converters? Just wondering how far he will take his environmental policies before his four years in office are up.

Trump’s 2025 executive order to reconsider the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rules on greenhouse gas endangerment resulted in EPA’s rescission of emissions standards. The agency’s rules originally applied to vehicles and engines and later to other carbon- and methane-emitting entities such as refineries, power plants and oil-and-gas operations. The president apparently applied his Bobby McFerrin political philosophy to this action: Don’t worry, be happy.

Gov. Jared Polis commented on the president’s decision. He cited unpredictability as a principal risk for people and business upon the rule’s rescission. A quick mind experiment suggests there will be great predictability related to certain impacts.

Car emission standards will no longer come from the federal government. This creates a stark ethical dilemma for the U.S. car industry and its shareholder-owned companies. They no longer must comply with federal emission standards. They can build big truck engines that push out any amount of carbon and methane. These vehicles are their most profitable products.

Under the previous rule, car makers had to offset their big trucks’ pollution with lower-profit-margin, emissions-efficient cars. Think hybrids and electric vehicles. Since 2009, these industrial powerhouses have redesigned their manufacturing, used lighter materials, and produced more efficient engines. What now?

Refineries, power plants, and oil-and-gas drillers and operators will face the same stark ethical choice: will they continue to mitigate carbon and methane because of EPA’s rules or will they forego that expense? Trump’s action may produce the greatest challenge to theories of capitalism and free markets in history as the rest of the world and the people of this nation look on.

For Colorado and other states with air-quality problems along with climate-change-produced drought conditions in the west, Trump’s deregulation is a certain disaster. The upper and lower states along the Colorado River can stop negotiating the river’s water. There won’t be enough to matter.

News reports indicate emissions regulation will go to the states. That will be where unpredictability for industry shows up. Seventeen states mostly blue in political color follow California’s engine emission standards. That population represents about 40% of the nation. The country will now learn from the other 33 states how industry prioritizes money versus the people’s health and environmental security.

The U.S. auto industry will face multiple temptations and counter pressures. They can build big, gas-guzzling trucks for the U.S. market, but they won’t be able to sell them in nations with strict emissions regulations. They face pressures from China, that sells its EVs everywhere but here in the US. As Trump’s policies to slow-walk electric vehicle charging stations proceeds, the auto industry can choose to give up on its EV initiatives for short term gains in gas-engine vehicle sales. But that choice threatens other business sectors that cannot thrive in an over-heated planet.

In Colorado, various environmental bills put up emissions controls. SB19-181 set a foundation energy development in oil and gas could not come at the expense of human and environmental health and welfare. Follow-up legislation has affected how drillers must measure and fix methane leaks and how other industrial operations must lower their emissions. None of these actions, however, has been enough to bring Colorado’s air quality along the FrontRange into compliance with EPA’s former rules.

Other areas of Colorado with significant oil-and-gas production also experience violations of EPA’s former standards. Unless the state acts, it’s very possible emission progress will turn into pollution regression.

Coloradans likely to suffer most under Trump’s repeal are people who live near interstate highways, near active oil-and-gas operations, and proximate to the Suncor Refinery and other industrial activities in north Denver and Adams County. If energy industries choose to go down the deregulation road, they can easily load up the state with carbon and methane emissions that directly affect ozone production, especially in summer months.

Anyone paying attention to the pain in Colorado’s recreational snow industries knows what’s at stake with emissions regression. Less snow due to climate change also affects agriculture, summer recreation and cities and counties trying to find enough water for residential and commercial uses.

The AI world will suffer as it needs water to cool its energy-driven servers in their enormous warehouses, at least until AI can figure out a water substitute. Very sadly, nature and all its elements will feel the pain of wind, fire and floods.

With this latest blow to science and common sense as it applies to how we as a nation conduct ourselves, has Trump completed his reversal of the mechanisms that keep us thriving? We no longer use vaccines to prevent measles or polio. Trump’s administration has essentially closed down environmental science funded by the federal government. Our scientists are fleeing to labs overseas. Don’t worry, be happy.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.