Unearthed emails expose how Obama-era EPA plotted ‘massive’ energy regulations from day one: watchdog
- April 14, 2026
Leo Briceno, Fox News
A government watchdog is accusing the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of pre-determining the legal basis for its climate framework.
In an amicus filing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO), a nonpartisan nonprofit, and Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT), another government accountability watchdog, unearthed communications from inside the EPA in 2009.
Those communications, the GAO argued, show that climate-minded officials treated Obama’s Endangerment Finding as a foregone conclusion and later used it as the foundation for vehicle emission standards, power plant regulations and permitting restrictions. In particular, GAO pointed to communications from Lisa Heinzerling, who served as the climate policy counsel at the EPA at the time.
Michael Chamberlain, the director of Protect the Public’s Trust, said the communications appear to telegraph a pre-determined outcome.
“The records from that time period merely confirm what many had suspected. The Obama administration’s Endangerment Finding was flawed from the start. It is clear that the new EPA appointees entered office determined to enact this massive bureaucratic overreach,” Chamberlain said.