WHAT THEY ARE SAYING: Leaders Praise the EPA for Launching Largest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History with Proposal to Rescind Obama-Era Endangerment Finding
- August 1, 2025
Staff, EPA
Earlier this week, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin released the agency’s proposal to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which has been used to justify over $1 trillion in regulations, including the Biden-Harris Administration’s electric vehicle mandate. If finalized, the proposal would repeal all greenhouse gas standards for light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and heavy-duty engines, thereby reinstating consumer choice while decreasing the cost of living on all products that trucks deliver. It would also mark one of the largest deregulatory actions in American history.
The Endangerment Finding is the legal prerequisite used by the Obama and Biden Administrations to regulate emissions from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines. Absent this finding, EPA would lack statutory authority under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to prescribe standards for greenhouse gas emissions.
This proposal, if finalized, is expected to save Americans $54 billion in costs annually through the repeal of all greenhouse gas standards, including the Biden EPA’s electric vehicle mandate, under conservative economic forecasts.
Protect the Public’s Trust Director Michael Chamberlain: “The Endangerment Finding represents the epitome in government overreach – giving the feds carte blanche to regulate virtually every item and activity in Americans’ daily lives. Rolling it back is also crucial to restoring scientific integrity and the democratic rule of law to the government. According to emails at the time it was implemented, in the early days of the Obama administration, EPA officials appeared to be already planning to implement their power-grab before all the data had been collected and interpreted. The scientific process starts with a hypothesis, not with a scheme to expand one’s bureaucratic fiefdom. If the finding was compromised, every action from the EPA and other government agencies that were based on it is also compromised.”