Groups Sue EPA Over Repeal of Rule Backing Climate Protections

A coalition of health and environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, challenging the rescinding of a scientific finding that has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

A rule completed by the EPA last week revoked a 2009 government declaration known as the endangerment finding that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare.

The Obama-era finding is the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants, and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.

The repeal eliminates all greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks and could unleash a broader undoing of climate regulations on stationary sources such as power plants and oil and natural gas facilities, experts say.

The legal challenge, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, asserts that the EPA's rescission of the endangerment finding is unlawful. The 2009 finding supported commonsense safeguards to reduce climate pollution, including from cars and trucks, the lawsuit says.

Clean vehicle standards imposed by the Biden administration were set to "deliver the single biggest cut to U.S. carbon pollution in history, save lives and save Americans hard-earned money on gas,'' the coalition said in filing the case.

After nearly two decades of scientific evidence supporting the 2009 finding, "the agency cannot credibly claim that the body of work is now incorrect,'' said Brian Lynk, a senior attorney at the Environmental Law & Policy Center.

"This reckless and legally untenable decision creates immediate uncertainty for businesses, guarantees prolonged legal battles and undermines the stability of federal climate regulations," Lynk said.

In a landmark 2007 case, the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are "air pollutants" under the Clean Air Act.

Since the high court's decision, in a case known as Massachusetts v. EPA, courts have uniformly rejected legal challenges to the endangerment finding, including a 2023 decision by the D.C. appeals court.

EPA spokeswoman Brigit Hirsch said Wednesday that the agency "carefully considered and reevaluated the legal foundation of the 2009 Endangerment Finding" in light of recent court decisions, including a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that limited how the clean air law can be used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

"EPA is bound by the laws established by Congress, including under the Clean Air Act,'' she said. "Congress never intended to give EPA authority to impose ]greenhouse gas] regulations for cars and trucks."

The dispute is likely to end up back before the Supreme Court, which is far more conservative than it was in 2007.

The lawsuit was brought by groups including the American Public Health Association, American Lung Association, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, and Physicians for Social Responsibility, along with environmental groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Sierra Club.

The suit named the EPA and its administrator, Lee Zeldin, as defendants.

President Donald Trump said in announcing the repeal that it was "the single largest deregulatory action in American history, by far," while Zeldin called the endangerment finding "the Holy Grail of federal regulatory overreach."

The endangerment finding "led to trillions of dollars in regulations that strangled entire sectors of the United States economy, including the American auto industry," Zeldin said.

"The Obama and Biden administrations used it to steamroll into existence a left-wing wish list of costly climate policies, electric vehicle mandates and other requirements that assaulted consumer choice and affordability."

Environmental groups described the move as the single biggest attack in U.S. history against federal authority to address climate change. Evidence backing up the endangerment finding has only grown stronger in the 17 years since it was approved, they said.

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is legally required to limit emissions of any air pollutant that causes or contributes to "air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare."

In its 2007 ruling, the Supreme Court told the EPA to determine, based on the science, if greenhouse gas pollution endangers human health and welfare.

The EPA made that determination in 2009, which led to new standards for vehicles. It built on that finding when issuing other standards.

The EPA's repeal of the endangerment finding, along with the elimination of safeguards to limit vehicle emissions, "marks a complete dereliction of the agency's mission to protect people's health and its legal obligations under the Clean Air Act,'' said Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is part of the suit.

"This shameful and dangerous action ... is rooted in falsehoods, not facts, and is at complete odds with the public interest and the best available science," Goldman said.

Heat-trapping emissions and global average temperatures are rising — primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels — contributing to a mounting human and economic toll across the world, she said.

The White House and Zeldin said the new rule will save taxpayers $1.3 trillion over the next three decades, mostly from reduced costs for new vehicles. But the EPA's own analysis found that eliminating the vehicle standards will likely raise gasoline prices, forcing Americans to spend more on fuel.

A chart within the agency's regulatory analysis predicts $1.4 trillion in added costs through 2055 from increased fuel purchases, vehicle repair and maintenance, and other issues.

The lawsuit comes as Senate Democrats announced they are launching an investigation into the decision, saying public comments by Zeldin and other Trump officials over the past year make clear that the administration "regarded repeal of the endangerment finding as a predetermined objective" long before it completed its required regulatory review, including consideration of nearly 600,000 public comments.

Many of the comments submitted to EPA detailed "the scientific and legal infirmities of repealing the endangerment finding,'' Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and other Democrats said.

Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee, is leading the inquiry with 40 other senators.

"When an agency signals that the outcome of a proceeding is preordained, public participation becomes performative rather than meaningful, undermining the legitimacy of the rulemaking process and violating basic principles of administrative law,'' the Democrats said in a letter to Zeldin.