Trump Repealing Global Warming?

In a sweeping and controversial action, President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed repealing the 2009 EPA “endangerment finding,” a key scientific declaration that has served as the legal backbone for federal climate regulations. The finding determined that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane “endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.” Since it was issued, it has allowed the government to regulate emissions from cars, power plants, factories, aircraft, and more.

Lee Zeldin, Trump’s new EPA Administrator, made the announcement in Indianapolis. “Repealing the finding will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America,” Zeldin said. “There are people who, in the name of climate change, are willing to bankrupt the country.” On the conservative “Ruthless” podcast, he added that the original finding allowed unelected officials to impose damaging rules across nearly every part of the economy. “They created this endangerment finding and then they are able to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary sources, to basically regulate out of existence, in many cases, a lot of segments of our economy. And it cost Americans a lot of money.”

A Blow to Climate Regulation

If finalized, this repeal would strip away the legal justification for nearly all federal efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. This would remove current limits on pollution from power plants, vehicles, and industrial sites, and make it harder for future administrations to regulate those emissions.

Zeldin declared the repeal “would end $1 trillion or more in hidden taxes on American businesses and families.” He argued that the EPA under the Obama and Biden administrations “twisted the law, ignored precedent and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year.”

The rollback includes other measures too. The EPA also proposed eliminating rules limiting carbon emissions from cars and trucks, which Zeldin claimed were wrongly treated as a mandate for electric vehicles. “With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” Zeldin said.

A Political Strategy, Not Just Science

Critics argue that this effort is about politics more than science. Trump’s EPA claims that the 2009 finding was based on flawed data and was overly pessimistic. The administration says the climate may not be as dangerous as previously thought and suggests there could be benefits to higher carbon dioxide levels. According to the proposal, “CO2 is necessary for human, animal and plant life, and advances public health.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright added, “We want to end the cancel culture Orwellian future reality we’ve been in where climate change is not treated as a serious science, is treated as a political force to silence and shame people.” Wright said he asked five scientists to conduct “an honest, credible, data and fact-driven assessment of climate change” and that the review was brief but went through internal checks at the Department of Energy and national labs.

The proposal argues that temperatures peaked in the 1930s and have been relatively stable since then. It questions whether recent weather events truly show a worsening climate. However, scientists say this directly contradicts decades of data from NOAA, NASA, and even the EPA’s own website, which says global atmospheric temperatures are at their highest levels in history.

Scientific Community Sounds the Alarm

Scientists and environmental leaders quickly condemned the plan. “To repeal the endangerment finding now would be like a driver who is speeding towards a cliff taking his foot off the brake and instead pressing the accelerator,” said Scott Saleska, a professor at the University of Arizona.

Christy Goldfuss, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “As Americans reel from deadly floods and heat waves, the Trump administration is trying to argue that the emissions turbocharging these disasters are not a threat. It boggles the mind and endangers the nation’s safety and welfare.” She warned that the EPA is “trying to shirk its responsibility to protect us from climate pollution” and added, “If EPA finalizes this illegal and cynical approach, we will see them in court.”

Other former EPA leaders also blasted the plan. Christine Todd Whitman, who served under President George W. Bush, said, “If there’s an endangerment finding to be found anywhere, it should be found on this administration because what they’re doing is so contrary to what the Environmental Protection Agency is about.”

John Balbus, former climate change and health equity official at the Department of Health and Human Services, said, “You only have to open your eyes to what has been going on in the U.S. in the past 10 years to know that the climate has changed.”

A group of scientists, including some who helped create the 2009 finding, published a letter in AGU Advances saying, “Sixteen years later, the scientific evidence supporting the endangerment finding is even stronger, with zero countervailing evidence.”

Environmentalists Prepare for Legal War

Legal experts say reversing the endangerment finding will not be easy. The Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. That case forced the EPA to evaluate whether those gases endangered public health, leading to the 2009 finding. Courts have since upheld the finding multiple times, and the Supreme Court declined to hear challenges as recently as 2023.

Environmental attorney David Doniger of the NRDC vowed, “We will certainly fight it.” Abigail Dillen of Earthjustice said the proposal “seeks to deny settled science by creating legal distinctions that have no basis in the law.” She added, “Rather than take seriously its responsibility to protect public health, the Trump administration is pretending that the pollution causing climate change is not hurting us.”

Jesse Keenan, a professor and author of the National Climate Assessment, said, “There is no sound basis in science or economics to disregard a warming world that imposes over a hundred billion dollars a year in losses on households, small businesses and shareholders.”

Industry Backers and Economic Arguments

Supporters of the repeal argue that past regulations created unnecessary economic burdens. Travis Fisher, a former Trump energy advisor now at the Cato Institute, said, “The real cost is the absence of new natural gas and coal plants that could be meeting the growing demand for electricity right now.” He claimed the current power grid is being pushed too hard due to lack of fossil fuel capacity.

EPA’s own proposal even suggests that previous regulators ignored the positive effects of CO₂. “The original finding was unduly pessimistic,” the agency now says. It cites possible benefits like increased agricultural output and longer growing seasons, although these points are disputed by most climate scientists.

Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s former EPA chief, said the time is right for repeal. “You always want to win in the courts,” he said, noting that recent rulings like Loper Bright v. Raimondo have changed how agencies are allowed to interpret laws. These legal shifts, he believes, give Trump’s team a better chance than during his first term.

The repeal proposal is now open for a 45-day public comment period and will likely face a long and fierce legal battle. In the meantime, it casts a shadow over America’s future ability to regulate climate pollution.

Mayors from Phoenix, Boise, and Atlanta issued a joint statement calling the move “a rejection of science and common sense.” Shannon Baker-Branstetter of the Center for American Progress said, “Abandoning all efforts to address climate change is not in the best interest of anyone but the fossil fuel industry.”

Whether the repeal succeeds or not, one thing is clear: the battle over climate policy has moved from the scientific lab to the courtroom and the campaign trail. As the EPA rewrites the rules, the future of America’s role in the fight against global warming hangs in the balance.

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