Trump EPA To Gut Legal Foundation for Electric Car Mandates

The Trump Environmental Protection Agency will soon repeal Obama-era rules that formed the legal basis for high-profile climate regulations like those targeting gas-powered vehicle emissions and coal plants, agency head Lee Zeldin announced.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Zeldin said the action "amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States." The EPA is set to formally rescind the rule, known as the endangerment finding, as soon as Thursday, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

The original finding, which the Obama administration issued in 2009, determined that carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and must be regulated under the Clean Air Act passed decades earlier. Most notably, it led to a Biden-era regulation that would have forced Americans to buy more electric vehicles.

It also formed the basis for EPA rules clamping down on emissions from coal-fired power plants, methane emissions from oil, and gas field operations. And it led to strict fuel economy standards for new vehicles and government-wide green energy spending.

The EPA estimates that vehicle regulations stemming from the finding alone have cost Americans more than $1 trillion.

The Trump administration's expected actions could dismantle many of the regulations that left-wing lawmakers and activists have supported in their effort to transition the United States to green energy sources. The actions would also represent the administration's most significant victory in its quest to roll back climate regulations and boost affordability.

"Withdrawing the endangerment finding is fantastic news for American workers and consumers," Myron Ebell, who headed the first Trump administration's EPA transition team, told the Free Beacon. "It will lead to repeal of the energy-rationing rules that have already raised electric rates and made the grid unreliable, limited the kinds of vehicles people can buy, destroyed energy and automotive jobs, and outsourced much of America's manufacturing to China."

The actions are likely to invite litigation from Democratic states and climate groups that see the endangerment finding as essential. According to Ebell, "there will be a mammoth legal challenge, which will almost certainly go to the Supreme Court."

"The unlawful, year-long effort by the political leadership at EPA rejects the overwhelming evidence that climate pollution threatens everyone's health and safety," said Environmental Defense Fund president Fred Krupp, vowing to take the EPA to court. "The evidence—and the lived experiences of so many Americans—tell us that our health will suffer."

Led by Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), every Democratic senator signed a letter to Zeldin in September demanding he preserve the endangerment finding. Rescinding the finding, they said, would be a "dereliction of duty" and take "breathtaking hubris."

The issue dates back to the 1970s, when Congress passed the Clean Air Act. The act requires the EPA to regulate any air pollutant emitted by mobile sources, like cars, and stationary sources, like power plants, that the agency determines to cause or contribute to pollution endangering public health or welfare. For decades, the EPA did not interpret that provision to include greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane.

A coalition of states led by Massachusetts eventually sued the EPA after the agency formally determined in 2003 that the Clean Air Act did not authorize it to consider greenhouse gas emissions. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the states and directed the EPA to consider whether greenhouse gas emissions do, in fact, endanger public health, leading to the 2009 endangerment finding.

The Trump EPA kickstarted the process of rescinding the finding in July.

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