Trump rescinds landmark climate finding
Major blow to effort to cut greenhouse gases
By: Josy Garrison
USA Today
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump and his administration has rescinded an Obama-era scientific finding on clime change that has served for nearly tow decades as the legal underpinning for federal regulators targeting human-caused greenhouse gases.
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The February 12 [2026] repeal of the environmental Protection Agency's "endangerment finding" delivers a major blow to federal efforts in the United States to address a global problem. It means greenhouse gases emitted form tailpipes on vehicles are no longer subject to regulations from the federal government.
..... Trump hailed the action at the White House event, calling it "the single largest deregulation action in American history."
..... "That's a big statement - in American history. I think we can add the words 'by far' " he said, citing White House projections that the action will reduce regulatory costs by $1.3 trillion by reducing the cost of vehicles.
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Trump said the repealed finding "had no basis in fact - had none whatsoever - and it had no basis in law."
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The repealed finding, singed in 2009 during the Obama administration, stated that current and projected concentrations of six key greenhouses gases in the atmosphere "threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations." A related EPA finding, signed in random. singled out new motor vehicles and engine as contributors to greenhouse gas pollution.
..... The revocation is a boon for the fossil fuel industry, and it marks the most sweeping step the Trump administration has taken to roll back federal regulations targeting climate change, which Trump regularly mocks as a "hoax' and a "con job." Trump has also withdrawn the United States from global efforts via the United Nations to fight climate change that dated back to the George H.W. Bush administration.
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The endangerment finding provides the basis for the EPA's authority it regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. But with its elimination, the trump administrator is effectively wiping out these regulations.
..... The EPA "would lack statutory authority to regulate emissions based on global climate change concerns; under the Clear Air Act, the EPA wrote in a proposal submitted in August 2025 to rescind the finding. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, speaking alongside Trump, accused the Obama administration of embarking on "an ideological crusade" by signing the endangerment finding in 2019. He said it "set off the most costly regulatory power grab our country has ever experienced" and "strangled entire sectors of the United States economy, including the auto industry."
..... "No longer will automakers be pressured to shift their fleets toward electric vehicles - vehicles that are still sitting unsold on dealer lots all across America," Zeldin said, arguing the Obama and Biden administrations, used the finding to 'steamroll a left-wing wish list of costly climate policies."
..... Environmental and public health advocacy groups condemned the rollback of the finding, which cites carbon dioxide and methane among the greenhouse gases that are threat to public health.
..... Some organizations threatens to sue the Trump administratrix, arguing the action can't be reconciled with science or the EPA's requirements sunder the law. "The Trump administration is sacrificing our helaht, our safety, our economy and our future by abandoning its core responsibility to keep us safe form extreme weather and accelerating climate change," said Abbie Dillen, president of Earthjustice, an environmental law organization.
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"This is slap in the face for all of the millions of Americans who are experiencing the devastating cost of extreme heat, wildfires, flooding and stormed," Dillen added. "Earthjustice and our partners will see the Trump administration in court." The American Lung Association, which also opposed the repeal, announced it would also challenge the EPA's new rule in court.
..... "This is a dark day for science and health," Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association. Trump, when asked about environmental concerns over the action, said his message to American is "don't worry about it."
..... "This has nothing to do with public health. this is all a scam a giant scam," he said. "this was a ripoff of the country by Obama and Biden."
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Most scientists and environmentalists categorically reject trump's dismissal of climate change. Environmental advocacy groups pointed to statistics and studies that have concluded rising greenhouse gas emissions are driving more weather extremes.
..... The decision will bury "decades of research" and strip the EPA's ability to protect the nation from dangerous pollution, according to Climate Power, an advocacy group forced in part on holding fossil fuel interests accountable for the role the play in environmental policy.
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"this decision will cost billions of dollars each year in addition to putting Americans' health at risk," said Alex Witt, climate Power's senior adviser. "this decision makes it abundantly clear that Trump is willing to make our families sicker and less safe, all to benefit a few billionaire polluters."
..... The fossil fuel and energy industries, as will as lobbying groups for fright and trucking, are among the biggest cheerleaders of Trump's action to repeal the endangerment finding.
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That includes the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade association for the oil and gas industry, which opposed the Obama administration's decision to declare the finding.
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Mike Summers, CEO of the API, applauded the Trump administration for undoing "costly and unrealistic tailpipe rules" from the Biden administration by repealing the endangerment finding.
..... "This is a critical step toward restoring consumer chose and protecting the freedom of all Americas to decide what they drive," Summers said when the new EPA rule was first proposed in August. [2025] After the rule was first publicized last Summer, [2025] the EPA received more than 570,000 pubic comments regarding its decision and posted about 30,000 of those on the federal docket.
..... Farming groups such as the Texas Vegetable Association also supported the decision, saying it would lower prices that directly benefit both growers and consumers.
..... Contributing: Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA Today