The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made waves on February 12, 2026, when it announced the formal rescission of the 2009 endangerment finding—a decision that for more than 16 years had been the scientific and legal backbone of federal efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. The move, spearheaded by President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, was celebrated by the administration as the biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history, but immediately drew fierce criticism from environmental advocates, scientists, and a coalition of state attorneys general.
The 2009 endangerment finding, established under President Barack Obama and then-EPA head Lisa P. Jackson, concluded that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases endangered public health and welfare. This landmark decision, rooted in a nearly 200-page scientific analysis and informed by more than 380,000 public comments, provided the legal foundation for a raft of federal regulations. These ranged from vehicle tailpipe emissions to controls on power plants and oil and gas operations—essentially shaping how America has responded to the climate crisis for over a decade.
President Trump, never one to mince words about his stance on climate policy, had long called climate change a "hoax" and made the rollback of environmental regulations a top priority from the outset of his second term. On January 20, 2025, he signed the executive order "Unleashing American Energy," directing the EPA to review the endangerment finding’s legality and continuing applicability. By March, the agency was rolling out more than two dozen policy recommendations aimed at scaling back environmental protections, including the formal reconsideration of the endangerment finding. The EPA’s proposal to rescind the finding was announced in July 2025, citing recent Supreme Court decisions that limited executive agencies’ regulatory power and arguing that the Obama administration had overstepped Congress’s intent with the Clean Air Act.
At the White House ceremony on February 12, 2026, press secretary Karoline Leavitt heralded the move as a boon for the American economy: “This will be the largest deregulatory action in American history, and it will save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations.” The EPA echoed this, projecting that consumers would save more than $2,400 on the purchase of a new vehicle. The bulk of these savings, the administration argued, would come from rolling back costly emissions standards for cars, SUVs, and trucks—vehicles that account for over 75% of direct greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. transportation sector, according to EPA data.
Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator and former Republican congressman, was blunt in his criticism of previous Democratic administrations: “They were willing to bankrupt the country in an effort to combat climate change. Democrats 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 … segments of our economy. And it cost Americans a lot of money.”
But environmentalists and legal experts see things very differently. Lou Leonard, dean of Clark University’s School of Climate, Environment, and Society, warned that repealing the endangerment finding could expose fossil fuel-intensive companies to new legal challenges. “When the EPA vacates the space legally and says we’re not going to regulate, we’re out of this game, then that not only creates room for other state and local governments to do their regulation, but it also creates room for legal claims against companies for not acting on climate,” Leonard told ABC News.
Abigail Dillen, president of the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice, didn’t mince words either: “The Trump administration is abandoning its core responsibility to keep us safe from extreme weather and accelerating climate change. There is no way to reconcile EPA’s decision with the law, the science and the reality of disasters that are hitting us harder every year. Earthjustice and our partners will see the Trump administration in court.”
Legal experts point out that the endangerment finding’s authority was rooted in the 2007 Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Writing for the court, Justice John Paul Stevens stated, “If EPA makes a finding of endangerment, the Clean Air Act requires the agency to regulate emissions of the deleterious pollutant from new motor vehicles.” Since then, courts have consistently upheld the EPA’s authority—and responsibility—to regulate greenhouse gases. In 2012, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected industry challenges to the endangerment finding, and the Supreme Court declined to hear further petitions in 2013.
Opponents of the repeal argue that the science linking greenhouse gas emissions to climate change is even stronger today than it was in 2009. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report in September 2025 concluding that the EPA’s original determination was “accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.” The panel stated unequivocally, “The evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gases is beyond scientific dispute.”
International bodies have echoed these concerns. The United Nations has warned that “health and the climate are inextricably linked, and today the health of billions is endangered by the climate crisis.” In 2021, 200 leading medical journals issued a joint editorial stating, “The science is unequivocal: a global increase of 1.5 C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.”
David Widawsky, U.S. Director at the World Resources Institute, summed up the stakes: “EPA’s own settled science shows that managing greenhouse gases is fundamental to protecting Americans. Rolling back these safeguards is a dangerous breach of responsibility to protect people, the environment, and our economy, benefitting polluters at the expense of all people.”
Political and legal battles are expected to intensify. A coalition of state attorneys general from California, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, as well as environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, have already signaled plans to challenge the EPA’s decision in court. California Governor Gavin Newsom and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, co-chairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance, declared, “This action is unlawful, ignores basic science, and denies reality. We know greenhouse gases cause climate change and endanger our communities and our health and we will not stop fighting to protect the American people from pollution.”
Despite the administration’s promises of economic savings, critics warn that the repeal could have far-reaching consequences. Peter Zalzal of the Environmental Defense Fund argued, “The EPA will be encouraging more climate pollution, higher health insurance and fuel costs and thousands of avoidable premature deaths.”
Michael Gerrard, professor at Columbia Law School and director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, warned that if the courts side with the administration, future presidents could be hamstrung in their ability to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. “If the Supreme Court says that, that would tie the hands of another president in reinstating the endangerment finding and in using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. It would not block another president from rejoining the Paris Agreement or doing lots of other things to fight climate change, but it would greatly hurt their ability to use the Clean Air Act,” Gerrard told ABC News.
As the legal and political dust settles, Americans are left with a pivotal question: What comes next for the nation’s climate policy? For now, the rollback stands as a stark reminder of the ongoing battle over the country’s environmental future—and the high stakes for health, the economy, and the planet itself.