WASHINGTON—In what many climate and health advocacy groups are calling a “dark day for science,” President Donald Trump announced the official termination of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 landmark determination that greenhouse gases warm the planet and threaten the health and welfare of those who inhabit it. And while the president claimed during a Feb. 12 press conference that the determination—called the Endangerment Finding—had no basis in “fact” or “law,” many experts, political officials, and climate activists say otherwise.
A ruling by the Supreme Court in the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA case found that “greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act,” and that the government needed to “determine whether or not emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution” that could possibly “endanger public health or welfare.”
Two years later, in 2009—under former President Barack Obama—the EPA issued two major findings: first, that greenhouse gases threaten public health, and second, greenhouse emissions from motor vehicle engines contribute to greenhouse gas pollution.
While these findings did not impose any immediate changes on industry, they constituted the prerequisite for the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and power plants and empowered it to require companies report their emissions.
Bogus science or bogus claims?
In a press release this week, the Trump administration claimed that the 2009 finding “enabled the Obama and Biden Administrations’ illegal push toward EV [electric vehicle] mandates” and empowered them to “pressure the vehicle industry to phase down production of various models of traditional gasoline and diesel trucks and to reengineer their fleets towards uneconomic and infeasible electric technologies.”
“This determination had no basis in fact—none whatsoever,” Trump claimed during a press conference. “On the contrary, over the generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty all over the world.”
In the written EPA repeal of the Endangerment Finding, the reasons given relied more on legal arguments than on an actual rebuke of the science that led to the 2009 determination.
The report claims that the Clean Air Act (CAA) does not give the EPA authority to “prescribe motor vehicle and engine emission standards” and that that authority lies solely with Congress. The Trump administration—which has bypassed Congress and issued 225 executive orders in 2025 alone—claimed that it was committed to “following the law exactly as it is written and as Congress intended.”
In a section of the repeal titled “Creating Policy Rooted in Reality,” which called climate change activists “zealots,” the document made the claim that the “predictions and assumptions” of the Endangerment Finding “did not materialize.” The document argues that even if the U.S. were to regulate all greenhouse gas emissions, there would be no “material impact on global climate indicators through 2100.”
Many of the arguments in the repeal stemmed from a report commissioned by Energy Secretary Chris Wright—the same report that a judge ruled in January was assembled in violation of transparency laws.
On Feb. 11, in anticipation of the decision, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said during a Fox Business interview that the repeal would boost the coal industry. “CO₂ [carbon dioxide] was never a pollutant,” he claimed. “The whole endangerment thing opens up the opportunity for the revival of clean, beautiful American coal.”
Prioritizing polluter profits
Many climate and environmental advocacy groups are pushing back on these assertions.
The Sierra Club issued a statement saying that the Trump administration’s recent decision is a “reckless move” that “would gut EPA’s authority to limit climate pollution from cars, power plants, and other major polluters.” The environmental organization asserted that the 2009 determination has “been upheld by the courts, grounded in overwhelming science, and used since 2009 to protect communities from deadly pollution. Eliminating it puts polluter profits over people’s lives, right as climate change is already destroying communities and driving up costs.”
“It appears that the Trump administration will make it their official policy that our lives, our health, and our future are of no importance to them, only polluter profits,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Loren Blackford.
Since returning to office in 2025, Trump has repeatedly sung the praises of the fossil fuel industry. Climate change activists charge that the president has continually tried to keep renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, out of the conversation.
During his inaugural address, Trump said he would declare a “national energy emergency” as one of his first acts. “We will drill, baby, drill,” he asserted, claiming that the U.S. would be a “rich nation again” and that the “liquid gold,” referring to oil and other fossil fuels, would “help us do it.”
When asked during the press conference what to tell Americans who are concerned that repealing the Endangerment Finding comes at the cost to public health and environmental science, Trump answered, “Tell them don’t worry about it. It has nothing to do with public health. It was all a scam. A giant scam. A rip-off by Obama and Biden…. They’ll [the American people] will have more money to spend on healthcare.”
But health organizations and medical professionals have stepped forward, refuting the president’s claims.
The American Lung Association issued a statement calling the repeal a “dark day for science and health,” and that “Climate change harms health—period. By refusing to acknowledge and act on this, America’s health will suffer preventable harm. Overturning the Endangerment Finding and eliminating cleaner vehicles rules will result in more air pollution, more frequent and intense disasters like wildfires and floods, and increased risk of diseases, making lung health worse across the U.S.”
The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments stated that “denial of well-established and credible science linking greenhouse gases to harms to human health will only deepen inequities and push our health systems beyond their limits.”
“The American people deserve to live full lives in clean and healthy communities. We expect EPA to fight for this, but it is abdicating its authority and losing sight of its mission to protect the American public from environmental health threats and to hold industry responsible for meeting these standards,” said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association.
Brian Campbell, PhD, Executive Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility, said that the Trump administration is “abandoning its responsibility to protect Americans from the greenhouse gas pollution driving climate change,” and that many of the members of his organization are “are already confronting the devastating impacts of climate change—from worsening heat and air pollution, extreme weather and the spread of infectious diseases—in our patients and communities.”
Largest deregulation in history
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin referred to the finding as the “Holy Grail” of the “climate change religion,” and that he was “proud to deliver the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history on behalf of American taxpayers and consumers.”
Those who have allied with the Trump administration’s latest maneuver seem to agree with Zeldin’s sentiments, claiming that this will save consumers money on the cost of cars and other vehicles—though statistics show that the affordability crisis has a lot more to do with food, health care, and housing than with what those in the U.S. are driving on the road.
Former President Barack Obama took to the social media platform X to say that “the Trump administration repealed the endangerment finding: the ruling that served as the basis for limits on tailpipe emissions and power plant rules,” and that “Without it, we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change—all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James posted that the EPA’s Endangerment Finding is “the scientific backbone of our nation’s fight against climate change” and that “communities are already facing threats from storms, wildfires, and floods. This [Trump administration] decision puts them more at risk.”
Experts warn that Trump’s latest move could trigger a broader rollback of climate regulations for stationary sources, including power plants and oil and gas facilities.
Drew Ball, southeast campaigns director at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), said in a statement after the repeal was announced that the decision “fails to accurately represent the real impact that greenhouse gas emissions have on the climate, our health, and safety. While the Trump administration may call climate change a ‘hoax,’ people across the South see the horrific effects first-hand through more costly and deadly climate disasters each year. The Trump administration’s refusal to recognize reality doesn’t mean the facts don’t exist.”
Many of the organizations, advocates, and public officials who spoke up also said they planned to challenge the decision in the courts.
The U.S. Climate Alliance, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, said the repeal was “unlawful, ignores basic science, and denies reality.”
The NRDC stated boldly on their website: “This decision is dangerous. It’s also illegal. We will see them in court, and we will win.”
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
