By Maxine Joselow and Lisa Friedman, The New York Times
July 29, 2025–Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Tuesday that the Trump administration would revoke the scientific determination that underpins the government’s legal authority to combat climate change.
Speaking at a truck dealership in Indianapolis, Mr. Zeldin said the E.P.A. planned to rescind the 2009 declaration, known as the endangerment finding, which concluded that planet-warming greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health. The Obama and Biden administrations used that determination to set strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants, and other industrial sources of pollution.
“The proposal would, if finalized, amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States,” Mr. Zeldin said. He said the proposal would also erase limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks on the nation’s roads.
Without the endangerment finding, the E.P.A. would be left with no authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions that are accumulating in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.
The proposal is President Trump’s most consequential step yet to derail federal climate efforts. It marks a notable shift in the administration’s position from one that had downplayed the threat of global warming to one that essentially flatly denies the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change.
It would not only reverse current regulations, but, if the move is upheld in court, it could make it significantly harder for future administrations to rein in climate pollution from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
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