“My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.” Those words, first spoken by President Gerald Ford regarding Watergate half a century ago, also apply to the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent proposal to revoke its endangerment finding, which provided the legal justification for the Obama and Biden administrations to impose over $1 trillion in regulatory costs on the American people. This proposal will finally inject some common sense into federal policy, and provide needed relief for struggling families facing higher costs.

The Obama administration’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases — including carbon dioxide, which humans expel every day when we breathe — endanger public health and welfare has served as the bedrock for myriad costly EPA regulations. Most recently, the endangerment finding served as the basis for the Biden administration’s costly electric vehicle mandate.

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By repealing the grounds for regulating emissions from motor vehicles, this change will allow consumers to buy the kinds of cars and trucks they want to buy, rather than the cars and trucks that Washington bureaucrats will let them purchase. That will provide welcome relief — an estimated $54 billion worth per year — for families and businesses that do not want to buy electric cars and trucks that often cost more and cannot service rural areas with few charging stations.

Revoking the endangerment finding represents not just good policy but good law, as multiple legal decisions since the EPA’s action 16 years ago have raised significant doubts about its legality. Supreme Court rulings in cases like West Virginia v. EPA three years ago, and Loper Bright v. Raimondo in 2023, clarified that bureaucrats cannot promulgate regulations surrounding major policy questions without explicit authorization from Congress. 

It says something about Washington that this principle — prohibiting bureaucrats from running amok without congressional authority — proved controversial when the Supreme Court issued these rulings. But eliminating the endangerment finding puts power back where it belongs: with our nation’s representatives, and ultimately with the people themselves.

Of course, revoking the endangerment finding does not mean that we can or should neglect the environment. We rely upon our pristine wilderness as a source of inspiration and pride for Alaskans—not to mention a source of income driven by those from around the country and around the world who wish to see Alaska’s beauty for themselves. As conservatives, we recognize that we have an obligation to preserve and protect our environment for generations to come. But we need not, and should not, weaponize the environment as an excuse to impose costly mandates that will destroy our economy — particularly when countries such as China, which emits nearly three times the carbon dioxide as the United States, have no intention of doing likewise.

HERE’S WHAT’S AT STAKE IF THE EPA WITHDRAWS THE ENDANGERMENT FINDING

Hopefully, this change spells the beginning of the end of the leftist climate cult’s dream of a command-and-control economy driven by diktats from Washington. When the Trump administration finalizes this proposal, Alaskans will have the certainty that they need to buy the vehicles they need and want, instead of what the EPA tells them they must purchase. And we will know that the oil and clean natural gas that we provide to the lower 48 states will continue to power our economy for years to come.

Since the first day he returned to office, President Donald Trump has continued to deliver for Alaska and Alaskans. I celebrate the EPA’s proposal to revoke the endangerment finding as but the latest example of his administration’s efforts.

Mike Dunleavy is the Governor of Alaska.