Groups, youth activists challenge EPA repeal of 2009 endangerment finding

Seventeen health and environmental groups, as well as 18 youth climate activists, filed petitions with a federal appeals court in hopes of halting the Trump administration's most consequential environmental deregulatory effort thus far.

The US Environmental Protection Agency on Feb. 12 made good on a promise to repeal its 2009 endangerment finding that six greenhouse gases are harmful to humans and should be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The agency used the finding to issue the nation's first carbon emission standards for vehicles in 2010 and based subsequent rules for power plants and the oil and natural gas sector on the original finding.

The revocation of the 2009 rule, along with all greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles, is expected to make it more difficult for future administrations to legally justify climate policies. Some legal experts also believe the Trump administration will use its Feb. 12 rule as a springboard for its planned repeal of the Biden-era power plant rule and its reconsideration of methane regulations for the oil and natural gas sector.

"The endangerment finding has been the backbone of climate policy for 17 years, protecting us from air pollution that endangers public health and welfare — including greenhouse gases that are driving climate change," Lawrence Hafetz, legal counsel for plaintiff Clean Air Council, said in a statement. "By repealing the finding, we are sweeping the single deadliest type of pollution, climate pollution, under the rug."

The groups sued the EPA in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on the day the agency's deregulatory rule was published in the Federal Register and went into effect.

"EPA's duty to curb greenhouse gas pollution is settled law," said Julia Olson, lead attorney for the youth petitioners and chief legal counsel of Our Children's Trust. "By reversing the endangerment finding and standards for cleaner vehicles, EPA is greenlighting dangerous pollution that will fill our communities and lungs with dirty air. That violates children's constitutional rights to life, liberty and religious freedom."

Endangerment finding 'is not valid'

The EPA said it considered and reevaluated the legal foundation of the 2009 finding, the text of the Clean Air Act and the legality of the endangerment finding in light of recent legal developments and court decisions.

"The agency concluded that Section 202(a) of the [Clean Air Act] does not provide EPA statutory authority to prescribe motor vehicle emission standards for the purpose of addressing global climate change concerns," the EPA said in an email. "In the absence of such authority, the endangerment finding is not valid, and EPA cannot retain the regulations that resulted from it."

The EPA is bound by laws established by Congress and lawmakers never intended to give EPA authority to impose GHG regulations for cars and trucks, the agency said.

The Trump administration has called its Feb. 12 announcement the "single largest deregulatory action in American history." It comes as the White House and cabinet agencies seek to bolster US consumption of oil and coal-fired electricity, major contributors to US greenhouse gas emissions.

"With this action, EPA flips its mission on its head," Hana Vizcarra, senior attorney at plaintiff Earthjustice, said in a statement. "It abandons its core mandate to protect human health and the environment to boost polluting industries and attempts to rewrite the law in order to do so."