Trump EPA moves to repeal landmark 'endangerment finding' that allows
climate regulation
[July 30, 2025]
By MATTHEW DALY
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday
proposed revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central
basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight
climate change.
The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule would rescind a 2009
declaration that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases endanger public health and welfare. The “endangerment finding” is
the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations under the Clean
Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources
that are heating the planet.
Repealing the finding “will be the largest deregulatory action in the
history of America," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Tuesday.
“There are people who, in the name of climate change, are willing to
bankrupt the country," Zeldin said on the conservative “Ruthless”
podcast. "They created this endangerment finding and then they are able
to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary
sources, to basically regulate out of existence, in many cases, a lot of
segments of our economy. And it cost Americans a lot of money.”
The EPA proposal must go though a lengthy review process, including
public comment, before it is finalized, likely next year. Environmental
groups are likely to challenge the rule change in court.
Zeldin called for a rewrite of the endangerment finding in March as part
of a series of environmental rollbacks announced at the same time in
what he said was "the greatest day of deregulation in American
history.'' A total of 31 key environmental rules on topics from clean
air to clean water and climate change would be rolled back or repealed
under Zeldin's plan.
Under the Obama and Biden administrations, his predecessors at EPA
“twisted the law, ignored precedent and warped science to achieve their
preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of
dollars in hidden taxes every single year,'' Zeldin said Tuesday at an
event in Indiana announcing the proposed rule change.
Tailpipe emission limits also targeted
The EPA also called for rescinding limits on tailpipe emissions that
were designed to encourage automakers to build and sell more electric
vehicles, a rule Trump incorrectly labels an EV “mandate.” The
transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions
in the United States.
Environmental groups said Zeldin's action seeks to deny reality even as
weather disasters exacerbated by climate change grow worse in the U.S.
and around the world.
“As Americans reel from deadly floods and heat waves, the Trump
administration is trying to argue that the emissions turbocharging these
disasters are not a threat,'' said Christy Goldfuss, executive director
of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It boggles the mind and
endangers the nation’s safety and welfare.”
Under Zeldin and Trump, “the EPA wants to shirk its responsibility to
protect us from climate pollution, but science and the law say
otherwise,'' she added. “If EPA finalizes this illegal and cynical
approach, we will see them in court.”
Three former EPA leaders have also criticized Zeldin, saying his March
announcement targeting the endangerment finding and other rules
imperiled the lives of millions of Americans and abandoned the agency’s
dual mission to protect the environment and human health.
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U.S. President Donald Trump talks to the media as he meets with
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Trump Turnberry golf club in
Turnberry, Scotland, Monday, July 28, 2025. (Christopher
Furlong/Pool Photo via AP)
“If there’s an endangerment finding to be found anywhere, it should
be found on this administration because what they’re doing is so
contrary to what the Environmental Protection Agency is about,”
Christine Todd Whitman, who led EPA under Republican President
George W. Bush, said after Zeldin's plan was made public.
The EPA proposal follows an executive order from Trump that directed
the agency to submit a report “on the legality and continuing
applicability” of the endangerment finding. Conservatives and some
congressional Republicans hailed the plan, calling it a way to undo
economically damaging rules to regulate greenhouse gases.
But environmental groups, legal experts and Democrats said any
attempt to repeal or roll back the endangerment finding would be an
uphill task with slim chance of success. The Supreme Court ruled in
2007 that EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gases as air
pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
Passing court muster could be an issue
The EPA proposal “seeks to deny settled science by creating legal
distinctions that have no basis in the law,” said Abigail Dillen,
president of the environmental law firm Earthjustice. Rather than
take seriously its responsibility to protect public health, “the
Trump administration is pretending that the pollution causing
climate change is not hurting us, even as we suffer more devastating
climate disasters every year," she said.
If finalized, repeal of the endangerment finding would erase current
limits on greenhouse gas pollution from cars, factories, power
plants and other sources and could prevent future administrations
from proposing rules to tackle climate change.
“The endangerment finding is built on a rock-solid scientific
foundation that has gotten even stronger over time," said Fred
Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. The finding “has
supported commonsense solutions that reduce pollution, give us
cleaner air and protect our health and our jobs,” he said.
Climate scientists warned that overturning the endangerment finding
would undermine decades of scientific progress and damage the
credibility of U.S. institutions tasked with protecting the
environment. The 12 hottest years on record have all occurred since
2009, and heat-related deaths are rising while wildfires are now
more frequent and severe, said Scott Saleska, professor of ecology
and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona.
“To repeal the endangerment finding now would be like a driver who
is speeding towards a cliff taking his foot off the brake and
instead pressing the accelerator,” Saleska said.
Jim Walsh, policy director of the environmental group Food & Water
Watch, used a more explosive metaphor. “Lee Zeldin’s assertion that
the EPA shouldn’t address greenhouse gas emissions is like a fire
chief claiming they shouldn’t fight fires,'' he said. “It is as
malicious as it is absurd."
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