Unearthed Documents Show Obama Admin’s Inevitable Green Gambit
- February 11, 2026
Audrey Streb, Daily Caller
Internal communications from the Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show that staffers rushed to publish a landmark climate regulation at a plum time for political messaging and imagining “group hugs” with green groups ahead of the announcement.
The regulation, known as the Endangerment Finding, expanded the definition of harmful air pollutants to include greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide and therefore allows the EPA to regulate them under the Clean Air Act. The Trump EPA proposed a rule to rescind it in July 2025 and is expected to announce the final verdict on Thursday, a decision critics have previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation would be a boon for key industries and consumer choice.
Obama EPA officials were hoping to announce the Endangerment Finding proposal ahead of Earth Day, internally flagging concerns over missing the self-imposed deadline related to “domestic and foreign criticism [that] would begin immediately and mount steadily,” according to a memorandum for Obama attributed to former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, dated March 2009. The proposed Finding was announcedon April 17, 2009.
Weeks after former President Barack Obama’s inauguration, on Feb. 16, 2009, an EPA official wrote that “the Sierra Club and other petitioners” who challenged a previous agency memo “will NOT be asking the court to stay the memo tomorrow. So, we should all be celebrating together tomorrow, and the Green Group meeting should be cause for a group hug. Have a good night.”
Though the timeline is unclear, other versions of these EPA documents redacted the sentence, “so, we should all be celebrating together tomorrow, and the Green Group meeting should be cause for a group hug,” and documents obtained by the government watchdog, Protect The Public’s Trust, include the full statement.
“The endangerment finding was an unprecedented power grab. These records provide evidence, if more were needed, that EPA leadership in the very early days of the Obama administration was determined to rush it through to achieve the bureaucratic coup regardless of the data, facts, or traditional process,” Michael Chamberlain, director of the government watchdog, Protect The Public’s Trust, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “They set artificial deadlines, attempted to steamroll procedural niceties, and coordinated with outside activist organizations. The records also reveal attempts by subsequent EPA staff to shield the officials involved by hiding embarrassing information from disclosure that was clearly not eligible for the justifications used to conceal it.”