In a rapid series of announcements March 12, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin unleashed a full-scale offensive on the agency’s regulatory authority, as it seeks to roll back as many as 31 regulations. 

Zeldin’s top targets include Biden administration rules on cutting emissions from vehicle tailpipes and coal-fired power plants and the 2009 endangerment finding, which established EPA’s authority to regulate GHGs under the Clean Air Act. 

The finding and other EPA rules threaten U.S. security and prosperity, Zeldin said in an agency press release, one of more than a dozen rolled out in a two-hour period. 

“The Trump administration will not sacrifice national prosperity, energy security and the freedom of our people for an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas,” Zeldin said. “We will follow the science, the law and common sense wherever it leads, and we will do so while advancing our commitment towards helping to deliver cleaner, healthier and safer air, land and water.” 

President Donald Trump first called for a reconsideration of the endangerment finding in his Jan. 20 executive order, “Unleashing American Energy.” Zeldin’s announcement begins a reconsideration process that could take months or years to complete and certainly will face legal challenges. 

According to EPA, multiple federal agencies and offices will be involved, including the Department of Energy, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

“It is in the best interest of the American people for EPA to ensure that any finding and regulations are based on the strongest scientific and legal foundation,” the agency said. “The reconsideration of the endangerment finding and EPA’s regulations that have relied on it furthers this interest. The agency cannot prejudge the outcome of this reconsideration or of any future rulemaking.” 

Zeldin did not comment on how major staff layoffs and anticipated budget cuts at DOE and NOAA might affect the reconsideration process.  

EPA’s ability to regulate GHGs, based on their threat to public health, was established in the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. 

Jarryd Page, staff attorney at the Environmental Law Institute, said the court ruled that “greenhouse gases probably fall within the very expansive definition of pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and so, EPA, you need to make a finding one way or the other, on whether or not these greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health or welfare, or whether they’re reasonably anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” 

After two years of study, the agency stating that GHGs are pollutants that do endanger public health, with a second finding issued at the same time saying they also “cause and contribute” to climate change. 

Page noted that Trump’s direct attack on the endangerment finding differs from the approach EPA took to GHG regulations during his first term, during which rules issued during the Obama administration were rescinded and replaced with less stringent regulations. “The endangerment finding was not challenged,” he said. 

A reversal of the finding would affect all sectors of the economy that emit GHG, Page said. “Removing the endangerment finding would mean EPA no longer has a requirement to regulate in any of these areas, and they could move forward with pulling back any and all of these Biden-era EPA regulations trying to reduce emissions.” 

But, Page noted, the Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to consider rolling back the endangerment finding, most recently in West Virginia v. EPA, which struck down the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. In general, reconsideration of EPA rules takes one to two years, he said. 

Avalanche of Announcements

Zeldin boasted in a video of “the greatest day of deregulation” in U.S. history before listing a handful of regulations EPA will reconsider. 

Among others announced later in the day was its mandatory GHG reporting program, under which businesses must calculate and report their emissions annually. 

Such reporting requirements are “another example of a bureaucratic government program that does not improve air quality,” Zeldin said in a press release. “Instead, it costs American businesses and manufacturing millions of dollars, hurting small businesses and the ability to achieve the American Dream.” 

Also up for reconsideration are the Biden administration rules on emissions from power plants and on tailpipe emissions from both light- and heavy-duty vehicles. 

Issued in April 2024, the 1,020-page rule on power plant emissions — referred to by opponents as “Clean Power Plan 2.0” — requires that coal-fired plants either ensure that 90% of their carbon emissions would be captured and stored by 2032 or close entirely by 2039. The rule sparked immediate legal challenges from Republican states and industry groups, but in an October ruling, the Supreme Court declined to put a hold on it. (See EPA Power Plant Rules Squeeze Coal Plants; Existing Gas Plants Exempt.) 

The costs that regulations impose on U.S. businesses and consumers were a consistent theme in Zeldin’s announcements, as was protecting consumer choice. 

Biden administration rules setting limits on tailpipe emissions from light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles resulted in $700 million in regulatory and compliance costs, EPA said in yet another press release. The rules were also characterized as the foundation for the nonexistent “electric vehicle mandate that takes away Americans’ ability to choose a safe and affordable car for their family and increases the cost of living on all products that trucks deliver.” 

Issued in March 2024, the emission rules for heavy-duty vehicles aimed to cut 1 billion tons of GHG emissions per year, while saving $3.5 billion for truckers. The rules also updated proposed standards issued in 2023 to provide a longer runway for manufacturers to meet emission-reduction targets. (See EPA Issues Final Standards on Heavy-duty Truck Emissions.) 

Other regulations and programs up for reconsideration include: 

• • limits on particulate matter, the microscopic pollution that can cause asthma and other respiratory illnesses; 

• • limits on hydrofluorocarbons used in aerosols, foam and refrigeration, which can be thousands of times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide; and 

• • standards on hazardous air pollutants — toxic chemicals that may cause cancer, birth defects or other serious diseases. EPA’s website notes that it has standards for 188 hazardous air pollutants. 

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.) called EPA’s reconsiderations “great news for North Dakota’s energy producers, farmers, businesses and families. This administration is taking decisive action to eliminate unnecessary, burdensome regulations that have made it harder for our energy producers to power the country and for our farmers to feed the world.” 

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, slammed the potential rollback of the endangerment finding as “a despicable betrayal of the American people. … Reversing the endangerment finding will have swift and catastrophic ramifications for the environment and health of all Americans.”