The Trump administration is taking steps to repeal a key climate policy from the Obama era, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin confirmed Wednesday, according to The Hill.
“EPA has sent to the Office of Management and Budget a proposed rule to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding from the Obama EPA,” Zeldin told Newsmax this week.
That 2009 determination, made under President Obama, found that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane posed a threat to public health. It provided the legal foundation for regulating emissions from vehicles and other sources under the Clean Air Act.
“Through the endangerment finding, there has been into the trillions worth of regulations, including tailpipe emissions and including electric vehicle mandates,” Zeldin said.
While Biden-era vehicle emissions standards didn’t explicitly mandate electric cars, they were expected to significantly shift the market toward them. The repeal of the endangerment finding could undercut such climate rules entirely.
The move, first reported by The New York Times, signals a major escalation in Trump’s rollback of environmental regulations. Although his first term saw the weakening of emissions limits, the endangerment finding itself remained intact—until now.