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Trump Administration Repeals Endangerment Finding

The Administration moved to repeal the EPA's 2009 Endangerment Finding, potentially rolling back multiple federal emissions rules.

The Trump Administration announced that it would turn back the Biden Administration's GHG Phase III and other emissions mandates by repealing the Endangerment Finding. 

 

Issued in 2009 by the Obama Administration, the Endangerment Finding determined that six greenhouse gases could be categorized as dangerous to human health under the Clean Air Act. Since that time, the EPA has used this ruling to limit the oil and gas industry, power plants, and motor vehicles.

 

“We are officially terminating the so-called endangerment finding,” President Donald Trump said on Thursday, calling the policy “disastrous.”

 

Trump said repealing the regulations will not impact public health. “This was all a scam, a giant scam,” Trump said on Thursday. “This was a rip off of the country by Obama and Biden.”

 

As part of the announcement, it was made clear that it would halt all emissions rules and mandates enacted by the Obama and Biden Administrations that were put forward in an effort to ban diesel and gas powered trucks and automobiles and force all vehicles toward electrification.

 

By eliminating the Endangerment Finding, the Trump Administration can more easily overturn other rules that proponents claim will reduce pollution emitted from power plants and oil and gas operations, although those will take separate regulatory processes to overturn.

 

Much of what was articulated by President Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin was that previous administrations exceeded their legal authority when they used the Clean Air Act to regulate pollution in the name of combating climate change.

 

Zeldin stated that “Today, the Trump EPA has finalized the single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America, referred to by some as the holy grail of federal regulatory overreach, the 2009 Obama EPA endangerment finding is now eliminated.”

 

Part of the legal arguments lie in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling released in 2007 that stated that the EPA had the authority to regulate climate pollution from greenhouse gases. Also, in 2022, the US Supreme Court upheld the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants, but narrowed the agency's scope significantly. 

 

By repealing the Endangerment Finding, the current EPA is simply wielding that power, but in a different way. Ultimately, the goal of the Trump Administration it to block agency power and give that power back to Congress, who has been shut out of all emissions and pollution decisions for the past few decades.

 

Environmental groups and others have vowed to fight this decision in court. Many believe this could ultimately end at the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court which would need to grapple with whether or not the EPA's Clean Air Act has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. TRALA believes this could take multiple years.

 

Zeldin laid out the agency's argument, saying EPA has no authority to regulate certain kinds of pollution unless Congress passes a law giving them express permission.

 

“If Congress didn't authorize it, EPA shouldn't be doing it,” Zeldin said on Thursday. “If Congress wants EPA to regulate the heck out of greenhouse gasses emitted from motor vehicles, then Congress can clearly make that the law.”

 

 

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