BY EMMANUEL OGBONNA
The Trump administration is expected this week to overturn a foundational scientific determination that has guided U.S. efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and address alleged climate change for more than a decade, according to a senior White House official.
The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to issue a final rule rescinding the 2009 declaration known as the endangerment finding, an Obama-era determination that concluded carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. That finding has served as the legal basis for most federal climate regulations under the Clean Air Act.
A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter before a formal announcement, confirmed the plan. The expected move was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
“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 press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Adopted in 2009, the endangerment finding underpins regulations covering emissions from motor vehicles, power plants and other major sources of pollution that contribute to global warming. It has been used to justify rules such as vehicle emissions standards and limits on industrial pollution, aimed at reducing risks linked to climate change, including extreme heat, flooding, wildfires and other increasingly destructive weather events affecting the United States and countries around the world.
If finalized, rescinding the finding would represent a sweeping shift in federal climate policy and would almost certainly trigger immediate legal challenges. Environmental organizations have described the effort as the most significant rollback of climate protections in U.S. history, warning that it could unravel decades of regulatory action intended to curb planet-warming pollution.
An EPA spokesperson declined to say when the revocation would be finalized but said the agency is completing work on a new rule addressing the finding. In an emailed statement, Brigit Hirsch said the 2009 determination was “one of the most damaging decisions in modern history” and said the agency is working toward what she called a “historic action for the American people.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly dismissed climate change as a “hoax” and has made deregulation a central pillar of his energy and environmental agenda. Earlier, he signed an executive order directing the EPA to review the legal basis and continued relevance of the endangerment finding. Conservative lawmakers and industry groups have long argued that climate regulations derived from the finding impose excessive costs on businesses and consumers while constraining economic growth.
Lee Zeldin, the former Republican congressman chosen by Trump to lead the EPA, has been a vocal critic of prior Democratic administrations’ climate policies. He has argued that federal regulators used the endangerment finding to justify far-reaching rules that, in his view, threatened key sectors of the U.S. economy.
“Democrats created this endangerment finding and then they are able to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary sources, to basically regulate out of existence segments of our economy,” Zeldin said when the proposed rollback was announced last year. “And it cost Americans a lot of money.”
Environmental and public health advocates strongly dispute that claim. Peter Zalzal, a lawyer and associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, said eliminating the finding would lead to higher levels of climate pollution, rising health care and fuel costs, and thousands of preventable premature deaths.
Zaldin’s push, Zalzal said, ignores both the scientific consensus on climate change and the real-world impacts already being felt across the country. He argued that the EPA has a clear legal duty to protect public health and welfare from the harms associated with greenhouse gas emissions.
Critics also point to long-standing legal precedent supporting the endangerment finding. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act, giving the agency authority to regulate them. Since then, federal courts have consistently rejected challenges to the endangerment finding, including a 2023 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Climate scientists say rescinding the finding would not alter the underlying science but would represent a political decision to disregard it. Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, said such a move reflects a shift in how climate skepticism is expressed within the Republican Party.
“They can no longer deny climate change is happening,” Mann said. “So instead they’re pretending it’s not a threat, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that it is, perhaps the greatest threat that we face today.”
As the administration prepares to finalize the rule, the decision is expected to ignite a prolonged legal and political battle that could reshape the future of U.S. climate policy and the federal government’s role in regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
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