The Environmental Protection Agency will move Tuesday to rescind the endangerment finding, an Obama-era label that declared carbon emissions and greenhouse gases a threat to public health and welfare and paved the way for $1 trillion in government regulations aimed at mitigating climate change.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Energy Secretary Christopher Wright will announce the move to rescind the finding in Indianapolis, an EPA official told The Washington Times.
Their announcement will include a proposal to end the federal government’s greenhouse gas regulations for all automobiles and trucks, an authority created under the endangerment finding now poised for elimination.
Attending the announcement will be members of the Indiana Motor Truck Association and the National Automobile Dealers Association, two groups significantly impacted by the Obama and Biden administrations’ rules that sought to curb tailpipe emissions and replace cars and trucks with electric vehicles.
“If finalized, the proposal would repeal all resulting greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines, thereby reinstating consumer choice and giving Americans the ability to purchase a safe and affordable car for their family while decreasing the cost of living on all products that trucks deliver,” an EPA official said.
The agency determined that the proposal would save $1 trillion in regulatory costs over three decades, or $54 billion annually.
The Biden administration finalized stringent tailpipe emission caps last year to force automakers to shift from producing gas-powered models to primarily electric vehicles by 2030.
The Biden administration argued that the caps were needed to significantly cut carbon emissions from vehicles, which were the source of 28% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, according to the EPA.
That rule, along with fuel efficiency standards ratcheted up under the Obama administration, increased the price of cars, critics say.
“One of the reasons cars cost so much is stupid fuel economy standards,” Steve Milloy, a senior fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, told The Times.
Auto dealers have produced more electric vehicles to meet government tailpipe emission caps but have struggled to sell them as buyers seek cheaper, gas-powered or hybrid vehicles.
President Trump campaigned on eliminating Mr. Biden’s so-called electric vehicle mandate and pledged to pare back the thousands of regulations implemented under the Obama and Biden administrations that he said have strangled the U.S. economy.
The endangerment finding, established in 2009, requires the EPA to take action under the authority of the Clean Air Act to reduce and eliminate carbon dioxide, methane and other gases believed to contribute to global warming.
Mr. Zeldin will announce that the agency determined that the endangerment finding is illegal, based in part on Supreme Court decisions in favor of those who have challenged it. Among the high court decisions was a 2022 ruling that found the EPA lacks the statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
In June, the EPA moved to repeal all greenhouse gas emissions standards for power plants, arguing in a draft proposal that the regulations are illegal.
The Sierra Club warned that rolling back the endangerment finding will “open the floodgates” to lawsuits and worsen the climate crisis.
“The Sierra Club has said that we can and would pursue every legal avenue available to us to stop these efforts to harm the public and endanger people’s health, and that is exactly the fight we will bring — on behalf of our millions of members and supporters and all Americans who just want a chance to live healthy lives,” Executive Director Ben Jealous said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.