![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ESF3GMR4RFKBJKIYPV7DIUXZXA.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin speak at the White House on Feb. 12, 2026.<\/p>\n
A Trump administration move Thursday to axe the centerpiece of federal climate policy jeopardizes state-level efforts to control pollution from motor vehicles as well.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Washington\u2019s largest climate polluter shuts down despite federal order<\/a><\/p>\n The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday erased the U.S. government\u2019s ability to fight climate-changing pollution from motor vehicles and other sources. It is now official U.S. policy that climate change does not endanger human welfare.<\/p>\n \u201cThe endangerment finding and the regulations that were based on it didn\u2019t just regulate emissions. It regulated and targeted the American dream,\u201d Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said Thursday at the White House, with President Donald Trump at his side.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2009, Barack Hussein Obama, his EPA, designated fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and other things that actually make factories rock and roll and other things drive very nicely as a threat to health and human welfare,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n The Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama issued a finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangered human welfare, enabling regulation of the gases under the federal Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n \u201cEffective immediately, we are repealing the ridiculous endangerment finding and terminating all additional green emission standards,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really kind of wipes clean what has been the major domestic vehicle for addressing climate change in this country,\u201d University of Washington law professor Sanne Knudsen said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the most pro-pollution President in American history,\u201d Sen. Patty Murray said in an emailed statement. \u201cThis crook of a President promised to let Big Oil and giant corporations trash our environment\u2014and now we\u2019re all paying for his corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n Murray said she would fight back \u201cevery way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n RELATED: The Trump Administration exempts new nuclear reactors from environmental review <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThis federal action is unlawful, ignores basic science and denies what we can see with our own two eyes: Climate change endangers our communities and our health \u2014 period,\u201d Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said in an emailed statement. \u201cFrom historic floods to devastating wildfires, Washingtonians have seen the impacts of the climate crisis firsthand.\u201d<\/p>\n Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said in an emailed statement that leaving greenhouse gas pollution unchecked would \u201cinvite catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor the sake of our communities and our future, this illegal action will not go unchallenged,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n Brown was part of a coalition of 23 attorneys general who urged the EPA in September, in a 225-page comment letter, to abandon the proposal.<\/p>\n Washington state Republican Party chair and state Rep. Jim Walsh called the now-defunct endangerment finding \u201ca pretty thin branch on which a lot of heavy regulatory burden was weighted.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a good thing,\u201d Walsh said of Thursday\u2019s long-expected announcement. \u201cIt will allow the streamlining and, frankly, rationalization of public policy that has not been streamlined and not been rational in quite a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n Climate action pushed to the state level<\/p>\n The rule announced Thursday immediately removes emission limits on motor vehicles, the nation\u2019s leading source of heat-trapping pollution, with deregulation of power plants and methane emissions expected to follow.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s radical,\u201d Knudsen said of the federal government canceling its own authority to regulate climate pollution. \u201cIt\u2019s a big move that would have major implications for how this country addresses greenhouse gas emissions, and it would mean that states become a much more important part of the picture here.\u201d<\/p>\n RELATED: Coal power in Washington Legislature\u2019s crosshairs after talk of Centralia plant\u2019s revival <\/a><\/p>\n With the new rule, the EPA is both ending its own restrictions on planet-heating pollution from cars and trucks and claiming that it still has the authority to prevent states from regulating that pollution.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re trying to thread a needle here,\u201d Knudsen said. \u201cThey cannot walk back federal regulation and at the same time prevent state regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n The Clean Air Act forbids states from regulating emissions from motor vehicles, with one big exception. California, which had been regulating air pollution from cars and trucks before the Clean Air Act existed, has been granted waivers over the years to keep doing so. States including Washington and Oregon have adopted California\u2019s tougher vehicle emission standards.<\/p>\n Washington state is currently phasing out petroleum-powered cars and trucks, requiring all new passenger vehicles and 40% to 75% of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles sold in the state have zero emissions by 2035.<\/p>\n In June, Trump rescinded California\u2019s latest waiver. California and 10 other states sued to restore the waiver, and their tighter vehicle rules, the same day.<\/p>\n With manufacturers free to sell as many gas-guzzling, highly polluting vehicles as they can, state and local efforts to fight climate change now face more of an uphill battle to help preserve a livable climate.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder President Trump\u2019s leadership, vehicle manufacturers can once again build what Americans want, not what politicians and bureaucrats in Washington demand,\u201d Zeldin said.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Bellevue-based truck manufacturer PACCAR said the new federal policy would not affect the company\u2019s plans to produce cleaner trucks.<\/p>\n