The move is expected to upend most U.S. policies aimed at reducing climate pollution \u2014 if the repeal can withstand court challenges from environmental groups, which had already been preparing to sue. <\/p>\n
The text of the rule repealing the finding has not yet been released, so many details are still unknown. However, the EPA released a draft version<\/a> in August, which also proposed removing all greenhouse gas emissions standards for motor vehicles. Leavitt said the EPA\u2019s planned deregulation would reduce the costs of cars, SUVs and trucks \u2014 an indication that the final draft may also include the vehicle emissions rollback.<\/p>\n Other climate regulations could soon come toppling down, as well: EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin proposed a rule in June to repeal carbon dioxide standards for power plants<\/a> and has promised that the EPA will reconsider other policies that rely on the endangerment finding, including regulations on methane, a potent greenhouse gas<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a briefing with reporters last month in advance of the EPA\u2019s decision, Manish Bapna, the president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called the expected repeal \u201cthe single biggest attack in U.S. history on federal authority to tackle the climate crisis.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cMore and more people are suffering from man-made disasters, from heartbreaking flooding in Texas and North Carolina, to the horrific fire around Los Angeles, to the record heat waves that now hit every summer. Eliminating the endangerment finding is denying these events and the existence of climate change writ large,\u201d Bapna said. <\/p>\n The conservative think tank The Heartland Institute, on the other hand, applauded the coming change. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Obama administration\u2019s determination that CO2 endangered human health and welfare was scientifically flawed and blatant political pandering,\u201d said James Taylor, the organization\u2019s president. <\/p>\n The endangerment finding was implemented during President Barack Obama\u2019s first term. Now, however, the EPA says that the decision \u201cunreasonably analyzed the scientific record\u201d and that its scientific underpinnings were too pessimistic and haven\u2019t been borne out.<\/p>\n In its preliminary draft of the rule, the EPA said the endangerment finding had overstated the risk of heat waves, projected more potential warming than has taken place and discounted the benefits of increases to carbon pollution, like increased plant growth. Prominent science groups have disputed those arguments.<\/p>\n The agency also said that court decisions since 2009, like West Virginia v. EPA<\/a>, have already narrowed its power to regulate greenhouse gases. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA does not have broad authority on its own to shift energy production away from coal plants toward cleaner sources.<\/p>\n The agency pinned many of the arguments in its preliminary rule on a controversial report commissioned by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. A judge ruled last month that Wright and the Energy Department had violated transparency laws in the way it formed and operated the working group<\/a> behind the report. <\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear whether the final rule will rely on the same arguments or change its justifications in response to public comments.<\/p>\n In their pushback against the EPA\u2019s draft rule, science groups took particular aim at the DOE report, which described increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as having a \u201cgreening\u201d benefit for the planet. The report also said there is not a clear trend in the frequency of extreme weather events, and that attributing them to climate change is difficult because of \u201cnatural climate variability, data limitations, and inherent model deficiencies.\u201d <\/p>\n The American Geophysical Union, a nonprofit scientific society, said the report presented \u201cinaccurate and cherry-picked\u201d information<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThe climate is changing faster than ever before, driven by human activities, and the resulting impacts on people and the world we depend on are becoming ever more dire,\u201d the union said in a statement, noting that greenhouse gases were higher than at any other time in the last 800,000 years. <\/p>\n \u201cThe changing climate is directly causing or exacerbating global average temperature increases and heat waves, sea level rise and storm surge, and ocean acidification, and is causing extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and drought to occur with greater frequency, intensity, or both.\u201d<\/p>\n The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine issued its own report about the endangerment finding, concluding that it was accurate and stood the test of time<\/a>. <\/p>\n Additionally, a group of 85 climate scientists submitted a point-by-point rebuttal of the DOE report<\/a> in public comments, writing that it \u201cexhibits pervasive problems with misrepresentation\u201d and \u201cdoes not meet standards of quality, utility, objectivity and integrity appropriate for use in supporting policy making.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year was the third-warmest in modern history<\/a>, according to Copernicus, the European Union\u2019s climate change monitoring service. The past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, Copernicus data shows.<\/p>\n Under President Donald Trump, the EPA has pursued an aggressive rollback of environmental regulations. Zeldin promised in a Wall Street Journal op-ed<\/a> last year that he would drive \u201ca dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.\u201d<\/p>\n The rollback of the endangerment finding will prompt a major court battle, however. <\/p>\n![\"Lee](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/260209-lee-zeldin-vsb-1900-ac0a16.jpg\")
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin attends an event at the White House in 2025. Jacquelyn Martin file \/ AP file<\/p>\n