EPA seeks to defang fight against climate change
Kelsey Reichmann
WASHINGTON (CN) — The Trump administration proposed a rule on Tuesday repealing the scientific finding undergirding greenhouse gas regulations on pollution that causes climate change.
The Environmental Protection Agency will repeal the 2009 “endangerment finding,” which declared carbon emissions a threat to public health and underpinned Clean Air Act rules, such as the Clean Car and Truck Standards.
Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the rule on the “Ruthless Podcast,” a conservative talk show, vaunting the move as “driving a dagger into the heart of the climate change religion.”
“How big is the endangerment finding?” Zeldin asked. “Well, repealing it will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America. So it's kind of a big deal.”
Environmental advocates condemned the administration’s rollback of what they called a vital tool to protect people from increasing climate disasters.
“These actions would lead to a predictable result — if there are no enforced limits on pollution, you get more of it, making life more expensive and even more dangerous,” Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. The stakes could not be higher for Americans.”
Dominique Browning, director and co-founder of Moms Clean Air Force, said that Zeldin’s “pollution spree” would make it easier for Americans to get sick, while the White House was making it more expensive to be healthy.
“If your house catches fire, you call the fire department,” Browning said in a statement. “Our planet is burning. EPA’s response? Do nothing. This is a shameful, reckless, and immoral move — all so wealthy, well-connected insiders can benefit.”
The transportation sector is one of the largest contributors of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA. Advocates warn that the Clean Car and Truck Standards, key tools under the endangerment finding, have been effective in cutting pollution linked to early death and heart and lung disease.
“But now the Trump administration is trying to steer us away from all those benefits and toward dirtier, more dangerous, and more destructive air,” Krupp said.
Zeldin previewed the proposal in March, announcing that the EPA would undertake 31 actions to reconsider numerous climate regulations, including rules for power plants, the oil and gas industry, coal-fired power plants, coal ash programs, and wastewater regulations for coal plants.
The effort would also end the “Good Neighbor" rule meant to reduce cross-state pollution, which the Supreme Court paused in June 2024.
Trump’s deregulatory agenda aligns with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which explicitly targets the endangerment finding. In April, Trump ordered federal agencies to scrap regulations he deemed unlawful, claiming to have the Supreme Court’s approval to ignore the typical period for public comment.
He pointed to 10 conservative-led rulings, including Loper Bright v. Raimondo, a landmark 2024 ruling that overturned four decades of precedent and gave federal agencies deference in interpreting federal law.
Zeldin described the endangerment finding as the “hub to the spoke of the left’s environmental agenda.” He claims that pollutants like carbon dioxide and methane, which endanger human health, are an oversimplification that has been abused to overregulate.
“They created this endangerment finding, and then they're 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 forms of segments of our economy,” Zeldin said.
In June, the EPA announced plans to repeal carbon and toxic pollution limits for power plants. Zeldin said the new rule would remove billions of dollars in costs for industry and “unleash” American energy.
The Environmental Defense Fund, however, predicted that the EPA’s plans to remove safeguards against pollution protections would cost the U.S. up to $4.3 trillion in net harms, including higher energy and healthcare costs by 2055.
The fund’s report found that the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda would lead to 184,000 more premature deaths, 280,000 more hospital and ER visits and add 18 billion metric tons more climate pollution to the air.