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Climate Change

Will Courts Uphold the EPA's Rescission of the "Endangerment Finding"?

The legal arguments put forward by the EPA are weak and unpersuasive, and could undermine the Administration's position in other climate litigation.

Jonathan H. Adler | 7.22.2026 3:47 PM

In February, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a regulation rescinding the so-called "endangerment finding"--the finding that the emission of greenhouse gases from mobile sources cause or contribute to air pollution that can be reasonably anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. As expected, environmental groups and blue states have already filed suit challenging the rescission. Some of the suits raise fanciful arguments, while others advance more traditional administrative law claims. The question is now in the courts.

Rescission of the endangerment finding was one of the Trump Administration's top environmental priorities, but some of us have been skeptical that endangerment repeal does much to advance the administration's deregulatory priorities (let alone a rational climate policy).

Reviewing the EPA's final rule and it justification, I believe my skepticism was justified. As I explain in the summer issue of Regulation, the EPA's move is "a costly, symbolic gesture that will divert administration resources from more meaningful deregulatory initiatives and does nothing to advance a rational climate change policy."

From the article:

The EPA's current position is that under the "best reading" of the CAA, Section 202 "does not authorize the Agency to prescribe emission standards in response to global climate change concerns." I have sympathy for this view, having........

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