By Trilby MacDonald, Ecology Center Writer, and Mike Garfield, Ecology Center Director
In a deeply cynical move, the Environmental Protection Agency is scheduled to announce tomorrow that it is rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding — the legal mechanism by which the EPA regulates climate pollution under the Clean Air Act. The EPA exists to protect citizens from the reckless endangerment of human and environmental health by corporations and the government itself. If the Endangerment Finding is rescinded, the very purpose of the EPA is called into doubt.
Without a doubt, this action is the most egregious and dangerous attack on environmental health and justice of all the egregiously dangerous attacks by the Trump Administration.
On August 1st, 2025, the EPA proposed reconsideration of the 2009 endangerment finding on the grounds that “CAA section 202(a) does not authorize the EPA to prescribe emission standards to address global climate change concerns and therefore do not need to be regulated.” The proposal goes on to say that “the EPA unreasonably analyzed the scientific record” and “developments cast significant doubt on the reliability of the findings.” The implications of this rollback cannot be overstated. Without the Endangerment Finding, the EPA would forfeit the ability to limit the carbon emissions that cause global warming and other pollutants that lead directly to an estimated 50,000 deaths, 85,000 hospitalizations, and 24 million asthma attacks per year, according to research by the Environmental Defense Fund.
Under the law, the EPA has to determine that any air pollutant to be regulated is dangerous to the public health and welfare, and overturning the 2009 finding would be effectively arguing that climate change is not dangerous.
The scientific basis for eliminating this crucial protection is a report produced by The Climate Working Group, a group of five climate skeptics hand picked by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The group casts doubt on climate science and the health impacts of tailpipe pollution, including nitrogen oxide, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds linked to asthma, heart disease, and premature death.
Their findings come into direct conflict with the EPA’s own research, which could explain why the group chose to meet privately rather than expose itself to challenges from the scientific community. The Environmental Defense Fund and Union of Concerned Scientists are suing the DOE for distorting established scientific research and evading transparency laws by illegally convening the Climate Working Group in secret. A judge overseeing the case said the group’s report was a clear attempt to infuse established science with doubt about the effects of carbon emissions on rising temperatures.
In September, 2025, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine issued its own report reaffirming that the use of fossil fuels is producing dangerous planetary warming. The scientific panel plays a unique role by statute in informing Clean Air Act regulations. Experts predict that if EPA highlights the Climate Working Group report in the final repeal of the endangerment finding it could come back to bite the agency in court. The case continues, though the group has since been disbanded.
The EPA claims that the Endangerment Finding rollback only targets emissions standards for passenger cars and commercial trucks, leaving the highest-emitting U.S. sector unregulated for carbon. But that is deliberately misleading, because without a separate finding for industry, the EPA would automatically lose the ability to regulate industrial emissions as well. Power plant carbon limits, oil and gas methane rules, and vehicle greenhouse gas standards would all be lifted if the Trump Administration succeeds in persuading federal courts that dismantling the Endangerment Finding is justified.
The economic justification for the vehicle standards and endangerment finding rollbacks is that emissions standards raise the cost of new vehicles and limit consumer choice. This is also misleading. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that while the 2025 Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards would increase the cost of new vehicles from $1,250 to $1,400, the cost increase would be more than offset by between $5,700 and $7,400 in fuel savings over the life of the average vehicle.
The real reason for the rollback is ideological. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made that clear when he first announced plans to rescind the Endangerment Finding: “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion…” In its zeal to repeal the standards, EPA essentially ignores any benefit to public health, and even revised its own scientific procedures to drop the value of a human life to zero.
When a federal agency charged with protecting human health and the environment repudiates its own science on pollution, disease, and climate change, it crosses the line into Orwellian perversion — where denial is duty and harm is policy. The Endangerment Finding Rollback, obscure as it sounds, is the absolute worst act of all the horrific crimes against the environment committed so far by the Trump Administration.