In February 2026, the Trump administration struck one of its biggest blows to climate action yet — repealing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “endangerment finding.” Issued in 2009, the endangerment finding is a determination that greenhouse gas pollution threatens public health and welfare.

The Trump administration’s abandonment of the endangerment finding came along with a move to eliminate climate pollution standards for motor vehicles, when transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

The finding is a key mechanism that the federal government relies on to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act. It laid the foundation for emissions standards that could rein in climate-harming pollution from sources like power plants and oil and gas facilities, in addition to motor vehicles. 

Repealing the endangerment finding takes a critical tool out of the government’s toolbox, at a time when bold climate action is more important than ever to protect communities and the environment.
But we’re not letting this happen without a fight. On April 8, we joined Alaskan tribes and environmental groups to sue the Trump administration.

The Trump Administration Ignores Climate Pollution Harms

Public health experts have decried the rollback of the endangerment finding as a threat to people and communities. Without meaningful action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, we’ll see more frequent and powerful climate-driven disasters, like wildfires whose smoke harms our lungs and hearts. 

Hotter temperatures and heavier rains increase the risk and spread of bacteria like Salmonella and insect-born diseases like malaria. Already, extreme temperatures kill thousands of Americans every year, and that number will only rise as climate change worsens.

The American Public Health Association released statements from nurses and physicians who spoke out about how this move will hurt the health of Americans at a time when climate change is already worsening conditions like asthma and other respiratory issues. 

On top of climate-related public health impacts, the rollback of the endangerment finding also threatens to worsen dangerous air pollution. The six greenhouse gases that the EPA can regulate under the finding include methane, which contributes to ozone pollution that damages our hearts and lungs. Another, nitrous oxides, contribute to ozone and particulate matter pollution. 

The Trump administration is diminishing the government’s ability to fight climate change and control the pollution that will lead to further warming and climate change-related catastrophes. This will especially impact overburdened communities that already face the brunt of air pollution and climate risks.

Repealing the endangerment finding flies in the face of long-settled science and is right out of the anti-science, anti-regulation Project 2025 agenda. The Trump administration has been defined by attacks on science and commonsense regulation — attacks that put our health and environment at risk, from defunding climate research to pushing industry-backed, baseless nutrition recommendations.

Rescinding the endangerment finding, like so many of this administration’s policies, will cost lives.

The EPA Must Take on Climate Change

The science on climate change settled — and so is the law. In fact, it was the Supreme Court’s watershed decision in Massachusetts v. EPA­ in 2007 that paved the way for the endangerment finding. There, the Court concluded that the Clean Air Act gave the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The Trump administration’s move to rescind the endangerment finding makes a mockery of the EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. The agency’s attempt to ignore its fundamental objective and disavow its authority to protect people and the planet is simply wrong. The notion that the EPA shouldn’t act against climate-harming greenhouse gas emissions is akin to a fire department refusing to fight fires. It is patently absurd. 

We can’t allow Trump’s EPA to shirk its responsibility for addressing these harms, and that’s why we’re fighting back against the repeal of the endangerment finding in court.