The Trump administration is proposing a repeal of the landmark finding that climate change poses a threat to the public — as well as repealing all climate regulations on cars and trucks.
Speaking in Indianapolis on Tuesday, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency is proposing to abandon the Obama-era finding on the dangers of greenhouse gases.
The endangerment finding also underpins the nation’s climate regulations, including those governing the automobile sector. The EPA’s proposal would rescind climate regulations for cars and trucks, meaning automakers would no longer have to abide by any climate rules.
The decision goes farther than even the first Trump administration. Trump 1.0 left the endangerment finding in place but dramatically weakened Obama-era regulations on cars.
Zeldin described the move as “the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.”
In a written statement, he said: “We heard loud and clear the concern that EPA’s GHG emissions standards themselves, not carbon dioxide which the Finding never assessed independently, was the real threat to Americans’ livelihoods.”
The 2009 endangerment finding proposed that emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases (GHG) threaten public health and welfare, and that vehicular emissions are a contributing factor.
The Trump administration is now proposing to find instead that “that there is insufficient reliable information to retain the conclusion that GHG emissions from new motor vehicles and engines in the United States cause or contribute to endangerment to public health and welfare in the form of global climate change.”
The impacts of Tuesday’s proposal appear to be limited to its regulations on the auto industry and does not directly address the EPA’s regulations on other emitting sectors including power plants.
However, in June, the Trump administration separately proposed to find that power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions “do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution” and therefore should not be regulated.
The Trump administration estimated that repealing all climate regulations on cars and trucks will result in between $157 billion and $444 billion worth of benefits between 2027 and 2055. This includes between $114 billion and $365 billion in savings due to projected changes in the makeup of the vehicle market — namely that fewer vehicles will be electric than under Biden-era rules.
However, if finalized, the moves are expected to put more carbon dioxide into the air and therefore exacerbate climate change.
When it imposed its latest set of regulations on light- and medium-duty vehicles, the Biden administration estimated that doing so would prevent 7.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions through the year 2055 — about four times the emissions of the whole U.S. transportation sector in 2021.
The rules are also expected to lead to increases in pollutants like soot that also stem from gas-powered cars.
The move comes amid a broader effort by the Trump administration to cut down on government regulations across the board, as well as to undermine efforts to combat climate change.
Climate change is primarily caused by human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels. The phenomenon is exacerbating extreme weather around the world.
The proposal also comes during a summer plagued by repeated weather disasters including deadly flooding in Texas that killed more than 130 people, as well as floods in other parts of the country and extreme heat on the East Coast.
In conjunction with the EPA move, the Energy Department released a report claiming that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed.” Energy Secretary Chris Wright has a history of downplaying climate change’s impacts.
While on the campaign trail, President Trump repeatedly pledged to repeal climate regulations on cars in particular, arguing that they harmed the auto sector and consumers’ choices.
Zeldin previously indicated plans to reconsider both the endangerment finding and climate regulations.
The EPA first made the endangerment finding in 2009 after the Massachusetts v. EPA court case. That case authorized the EPA to regulate planet-warming emissions under the Clean Air Act if the agency finds that they pose a threat to the public.
The EPA’s move on Tuesday is not final. The draft determination will need to go through a public comment period before the agency can finalize it.
Democrats slammed the proposal as both harmful and unscientific.
“Arguing that greenhouse gases emissions don’t put us in danger by causing climate change is like saying that a lit match can’t put us in danger by burning down the house,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in a written statement.
“This is nothing more than selling out Americans’ safety and future just for the convenience of polluters. Trump, Zeldin, and their whole cabal of polluters should be ashamed,” he added.
—Updated at 4:58 p.m. EDT
