Client Alert
Last week, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rescinded its long-standing Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and subsequent federal greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and trucks. The rescission lifts existing obligations on automobile manufacturers with respect to the measurement, control, and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions. It does not explicitly change greenhouse gas emission requirements applicable to other regulated sources such as power plants and oil and gas facilities. However, the rescission establishes a basis for rescinding greenhouse gas emission standards from such sources at a future date.
Effects of the Rescission
Under the Obama Administration, the EPA in 2009 issued a scientific finding, which formally found that greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide, methane and four others) threaten human health and welfare. This finding provided the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Endangerment Finding was issued following a 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the Court held that greenhouse gases qualified as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Based on that decision, the Court directed the EPA to determine whether greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health.
The EPA calls the rescission the “single largest deregulatory action in US history” and claims that it is expected to save taxpayers over $1.3 trillion. Meanwhile, environmental groups and other opponents of the rescission characterize the move as a blow to climate change regulation and assert that the rescission could cause greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to significantly increase and lead to more frequent and intense severe weather events.
The first lawsuit challenging the EPA’s action has already been filed. On February 18, 2026, a coalition of public health and environmental groups filed a petition for review with the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia.
