In a move that has sent shockwaves through the environmental community and reignited fierce debate in Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday, February 12, 2026, announced it is rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding. This landmark decision, made public by President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin at a White House ceremony, effectively strips away the legal and scientific foundation for federal regulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act—a foundation that has guided U.S. climate policy for more than sixteen years.
The 2009 endangerment finding, established during the Obama administration, declared that six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, endangered public health and welfare. This finding paved the way for regulations that touched nearly every corner of the American energy and transportation landscape, from vehicle tailpipe emissions to power plant pollution controls. According to ABC News, the transportation sector is the largest direct contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the country, with cars and trucks accounting for more than 75% of those emissions.
The Trump administration, which has long criticized the regulatory reach of the EPA, argues that repealing the endangerment finding will deliver enormous economic benefits. At the announcement, the White House stated the move “will be the largest deregulatory action in American history, and it will save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations.” EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch told AP that most of the savings would come from reduced costs for new vehicles, with the agency projecting average per-vehicle savings of more than $2,400 for light-duty cars, SUVs, and trucks. The EPA’s own statement to ABC News called the 2009 finding “one of the most damaging decisions in modern history,” blaming it for higher costs faced by families and small businesses.
President Trump, who has previously dismissed climate change as a “hoax,” made reviewing the endangerment finding a cornerstone of his environmental agenda since the first day of his second term. On January 20, 2025, he signed the executive order “Unleashing American Energy,” which required the EPA to work with other agencies to submit recommendations on the legality and continuing applicability of the finding. By March 2025, the EPA had announced more than two dozen policy recommendations to roll back environmental protections and eliminate a series of climate change regulations, including plans to “formally reconsider the endangerment finding.”
At the heart of the legal battle is the 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Writing for the majority, 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.” This landmark ruling became the legal backbone for the 2009 endangerment finding and the subsequent web of federal climate regulations.
Critics of the repeal, including environmental groups and a coalition of state attorneys general, argue that the move is not only unlawful but also flies in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence. “The Trump administration is abandoning its core responsibility to keep us safe from extreme weather and accelerating climate change,” said Abigail Dillen, president of the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice, in a statement to AP. She added, “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.”
Michael Gerrard, a professor at Columbia Law School and director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, warned in ABC News that “this is taking away the principal federal authority to regulate greenhouse gases. All of the federal regulations under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases depend on the endangerment finding. If it's wiped out, none of those regulations exist.” He added that while the immediate impact may be muted due to prior rollbacks, “this action attempts to be the nail in the coffin of all those regulations, at least for the balance of the Trump administration.”
The scientific community has responded to the repeal with alarm. Following the EPA’s proposal to rescind the finding in July 2025, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a comprehensive review of the underlying science. In a report released in September, the panel concluded that the 2009 finding “was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.” Their assessment stated, “The evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gases is beyond scientific dispute.”
Other leading authorities have echoed these concerns. The United Nations has declared 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 warning that “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.” The Fifth National Climate Assessment, published in 2023, found that climate changes are already making it harder to maintain safe homes, healthy families, and resilient communities in the United States.
But the Trump administration and its supporters see things differently. The conservative Pacific Legal Foundation argued to ABC News that the 2009 endangerment finding “triggered a trillion-dollar regulatory cascade that Congress never authorized.” They claim the repeal “restores the principle that decisions of this magnitude require clear congressional authorization, not bureaucratic improvisation.” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, a former Republican congressman, has accused previous Democratic administrations of being “willing to bankrupt the country” in their efforts to combat climate change. “The Trump Administration will not sacrifice national prosperity, energy security, and the freedom of our people for an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas,” Zeldin wrote in March 2025.
The legal path forward is uncertain. Previous court challenges to the endangerment finding itself were rejected, with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2012 upholding the EPA’s use of scientific assessments as rational and supported by substantial evidence. In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit again rejected efforts to overturn the finding. However, the current repeal is certain to face new legal challenges. A coalition of attorneys general from states including California, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, alongside groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, have already signaled their intent to sue. California Governor Gavin Newsom and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, co-chairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance, stated, “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.”
For now, the future of U.S. climate policy hangs in the balance. As Lou Leonard, dean of Clark University’s School of Climate, Environment, and Society, told ABC News, “There’s a lot of uncertainty, and we’re gonna have even more starting tomorrow or the next day, and that’s not good. It’s not good for the public health of Americans, it’s not good for the welfare of our communities, and it’s not good for the business climate and the economy in America.”
With the EPA’s historic reversal, the nation stands at a crossroads, facing a pivotal test of its commitment to science, public health, and the rule of law in the ongoing battle against climate change.