EPA set to revoke ‘endangerment finding’ that underpins all climate regulation

The Environmental Protection Agency moved to finalize the revocation of a critical scientific finding that undergirds the U.S. government’s climate regulations and ability to regulate greenhouse gases, the agency told CNBC.

The EPA took a key step to ax the 2009 “endangerment finding” over the weekend by submitting the proposed rule to the Office of Management and Budget, the EPA press office told CNBC. The agency initially proposed rescinding it in July last year.

“This week at the White House, President Trump will be taking the most significant deregulatory actions in history to further unleash American energy dominance and drive down costs,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in an email to CNBC.

The revocation of the endangerment finding would represent the Trump administration’s biggest broadside yet against efforts to combat climate change and would be a boon for the fossil fuel industry that has fought against climate regulations for years. The endangerment finding determined that greenhouse gases pose a risk to public health and welfare, giving EPA the authority to regulate them.

Effectively, the EPA’s move would immediately wipe away regulations on emissions from the country’s highest polluting sector in transportation.

Rescinding the endangerment finding, which was signed during the Obama administration and serves as the basis for troves of U.S. climate policy enacted since, would cause EPA to “lack statutory authority under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to prescribe standards for certain motor vehicle emissions,” the agency said.

Since the ruling, the EPA has regulated emissions from automobiles and other vehicles and power plants. Its revocation would open the door to challenging those regulations.

Rescinding the endangerment finding would almost certainly face legal challenges from environmental groups, and it could be legally tenuous. The endangerment finding has been upheld in court. In 2007, a Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, cleared the way for the finding to be made. The high court declined to hear an appeal challenging the endangerment finding as recently as 2023.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the administration’s plans.