Trump revokes Obama-era determination linking greenhouse gases to climate change. The action strips the federal government of much of its authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
The Trump administration has dismantled a central pillar of federal climate policy by overturning a 15-year-old determination that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare, effectively removing the legal basis for most U.S. climate regulations.
President Donald Trump unveiled the decision on Thursday alongside Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin. He described the original determination as “a disastrous Obama era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers.”
He asserted that the move would “eliminate over $1.3 trillion of regulatory cost and help bring car prices tumbling down dramatically.”
“This determination had no basis in fact, had none whatsoever, and it had no basis in law. On the contrary, over the generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty and all over the world,” Trump said.
“Bad things happened, and yet this radical rule became the legal foundation for the green new scam, one of the greatest scams in history … that is why, effective immediately, we are repealing the ridiculous endangerment finding and terminating all additional green emission standards imposed unnecessarily on vehicle models and engines between 2012 and 2027 and beyond.”
Zeldin characterized the decision as “the single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America,” arguing that it dismantled what he called “the holy grail of federal regulatory overreach.”
“Sixteen years ago, an ideological crusade within the Obama administration set off the most costly regulatory power grab our country has ever experienced. The 2009 Obama EPA endangerment finding led to trillions of dollars in regulations that strangled entire sectors of the United States economy, including the American auto industry,” Zeldin said.
He further accused both the Obama and Biden administrations of leveraging the finding to “steamroll into existence a left-wing wish list of costly climate policies, electric vehicle mandates and other requirements that assaulted consumer choice and affordability.”
“The endangerment finding and the regulations that were based on it didn’t just regulate emissions, it regulated and targeted the American dream, and now the endangerment finding is hereby eliminated, as well as all greenhouse gas emission standards that followed. The red tape has been cut.”
Zeldin added that automakers would “no longer be burdened by measuring, compiling or reporting greenhouse gas emissions for vehicles and engines” and said they would “no longer … be pressured to shift their fleets towards electric vehicles.”
By rescinding the landmark 2009 determination, the administration is wiping out EPA limits on greenhouse gas pollution across multiple sectors, adding to numerous earlier reversals of federal environmental and climate policies since Trump resumed office last January.
Officials maintained that the action would “eliminate over $1.3 trillion of regulatory cost and help bring car prices tumbling down dramatically.”
Donald Trump
The Obama-era finding forms the legal backbone of nearly every federal restriction on planet-warming emissions under the Clean Air Act, including standards governing vehicle pollution, methane emissions, and limits placed on power plants and industrial operations. Without that finding, the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would be substantially curtailed.
Over the past 15 years, the endangerment finding has contributed to reductions in climate pollution and supported measures aimed at protecting public health, including stricter emissions standards for power plants, trucks, and other vehicles.
The reversal effectively dismantles tailpipe emission limits, allowing automakers to immediately begin producing vehicles that consume significantly more fuel than current standards permit.
Climate researchers and advocacy groups have cautioned that discarding the 2009 ruling would severely undermine the nation’s capacity to mitigate the most severe impacts of climate change, placing communities worldwide at risk as the administration pursues its energy dominance agenda.
Environmental organizations and political leaders swiftly condemned the decision on Thursday.
“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,” California Governor Gavin Newsom and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said in a joint statement.
New Jersey Representative Frank Pallone, the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the auto industry, also denounced the move, describing it as “the direct result of having corrupt, dishonest grifters running the White House and EPA, whose only priority is lining the pockets of their wealthy corporate polluter friends” in a blistering statement.
Pallone warned that the EPA’s action would result in higher costs for food, electricity, and housing while “unchecked climate pollution wreaks havoc on property values, insurance rates, and jobs.”
“It’s a lose-lose for middle-class families and an absolute coup for Trump’s wealthy corporate buddies who are being allowed to run roughshod over our country,” he said.
The Environmental Defense Fund likewise released a statement criticizing the rollback and pledging legal action.
“This action will only lead to more of this pollution, and that will lead to higher costs and real harms for American families,” President Fred Krupp said. “The evidence, and the lived experiences of so many Americans, tell us that our health will suffer.”
“If you’re busily committing a crime, it’s smart to try and change the law so that it’s not technically a crime anymore,” author and Third Act founder Bill McKibben previously told The Independent, on the proposal. “Big Oil is not content to merely wreck the future; they’d like to alter the past as well.”
Dr. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the California Institute for Water Resources, told The Independent last year that anticipated legal challenges could delay the policy’s implementation for a year or longer as courts evaluate whether the administration followed proper procedures.
“If this ultimately comes to pass, the consequences will be stark: it essentially would halt all federal actions to regulate heat-trapping and climate change-causing greenhouse gases as a pollutant. That would mark a grim milestone, indeed,” Swain said.
Thursday’s announcement represents the latest in a series of actions by Zeldin, a former New York congressman, aimed at reducing the federal government’s capacity to assess or respond to human-driven climate change.
Last year, he also revealed plans to close the agency’s Office of Research and Development, which supplies scientific expertise for environmental policy and regulatory decisions and evaluates the risks posed by climate change and pollution.
