Arizona will be fighting the Trump administration over its deregulation of motor vehicle and engine emissions.
Attorney General Kris Mayes announced her decision to sue the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) alongside a coalition of states, counties, and cities over the agency’s decision last month to rescind the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding.
The 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding followed the Supreme Court ruling Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007 granting the EPA authorization to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding resulted in emissions regulations for new motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines.
Mayes and the EPA disagree as to whether the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling and the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding were connected. Mayes maintains the decision directly gave the EPA regulatory authority, but the EPA maintains the decision merely recognized greenhouse gas emissions as air pollutants.
The EPA justified its decision based on its reading of the Clean Air Act (CAA), first established in 1965, and Supreme Court decisions overruling EPA regulations following the 2007 decision.
The EPA determined it lacked statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions for motor vehicles, specifically citing Section 202(a) of the CAA. Additionally, the EPA determined that its regulations “have not and cannot have any material impact on global climate change concerns, rendering them futile.”
According to the EPA, the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding served as the legal prerequisite for the Biden administration’s push toward an electric vehicle mandate and the vehicle manufacturer industry shift toward start-stop features in cars.
As a result of the EPA’s new rule, engine and vehicle manufactures won’t be obligated to measure, control, or report greenhouse gas emissions for any highway engine and vehicle. Their action grandfathered in model years manufactured prior to the rule.
The EPA estimated the rescission amounted to “the largest deregulatory action in U.S. history,” and would save Americans over $1.3 trillion in vehicle costs. That amounts to an estimated $2,400 in savings for new cars and trucks.
The EPA issued a notice clarifying which regulations will be impacted by their new final rule. (A full regulatory impact analysis was made available here).
Mayes accused the Trump administration of rushing the rulemaking process and “blatantly disregarding the law and science.” Mayes blamed emissions for climate change, citing Arizona’s recent years of record summer heat and wildfires.
“On the day we file this lawsuit, much of Arizona is under an extreme heat warning due to an unprecedented early heatwave that has spiked temperatures over twenty degrees above normal,” said Mayes. “It is abundantly clear that greenhouse gas pollution has fueled climate change in our state and across the entire planet. The decision by the Trump administration to rescind the Endangerment Finding will only accelerate climate change. Putting the profits of the fossil fuel industry over the future of our planet is a failure of historic proportions and we will fight it with every tool we have.”
Mayes joined the lawsuit filed by the attorneys general for 22 states and D.C.: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Their lawsuit was also joined by the governor of Pennsylvania, eight cities across seven states, and four counties across three states.
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The Trump administration recently unveiled a proposal to repeal the 2009 “Endangerment Finding,” a controversial U.S. climate policy that declared carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases a threat to public health and welfare.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed rule, if finalized, would dismantle the legal foundation for numerous climate regulations under the Clean Air Act, repealing all resulting greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin described the move as “the largest deregulatory action in the history of America,” arguing that the Endangerment Finding has been misused to impose costly regulations.
“There are people who, in the name of climate change, are willing to bankrupt the country,” Zeldin said. “They created this endangerment finding, and then they are able to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary sources, to basically regulate out of existence, in many cases, a lot of segments of our economy. And it cost Americans a lot of money.”
The proposal, which follows an executive order from President Trump, directs the EPA to review the findings’ legality. It is part of a broader push to roll back 31 environmental regulations.
Zeldin criticized the Obama and Biden administrations, saying they “twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year.”
In states like Arizona, the Endangerment Finding has been used to enforce mandates and shut down energy sources that Arizona relies on.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club celebrated the EPA’s proposal, viewing it as a critical step toward alleviating economic burdens imposed on Arizona families and businesses from overreaching environmental mandates.
The Club argues that the Endangerment Finding has forced the closure of reliable energy facilities and imposed costly environmental policies that have led to soaring utility costs and raised concerns about the reliability of the state’s energy grid.
Scot Mussi, President of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, reacted to the Trump administration’s proposal, saying, “[The Endangerment Finding] has always been junk science used to shut down Arizona’s economy, close down our coal plants, and force our state into California-style green mandates. Repealing the Endangerment Finding is a necessary step to restore energy independence, protect ratepayers, and stop the unelected bureaucrats at the EPA from hijacking our economy in the name of climate alarmism.”
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The Trump administration is gearing up to try to revoke one of the most overreaching, unscientific regulatory edifices ever erected: the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding.” News broke this week that the Environmental Protection Agency has drafted a plan to rescind this cornerstone of federal climate policy, which declared that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane pose a danger to human health and welfare.
If this move succeeds, it would limit the federal government’s ability to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from cars, power plants, and industries—a prospect that has the climate alarmist crowd clutching their pearls. And frankly, it’s about time someone challenged this rank absurdity.
Let’s take a walk down memory lane to 2009, when the Obama-era EPA, emboldened by the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, decided to anoint itself the arbiter of America’s energy future. The endangerment finding was born, asserting that CO2 – literally plant food, and the fundamental building block for all life on planet Earth – is actually a “pollutant” that “endangers public health” as defined under the Clean Air Act.
This vast expansion of the regulatory state wasn’t based on some groundbreaking scientific discovery but rather on a political agenda dressed up in green rhetoric. The finding has since provided the legal foundation for a slew of regulations, from tailpipe emissions standards to power plant rules, all designed to choke the fossil fuel industry and push the U.S. toward a so-called “clean energy” utopia that exists only in the fever dreams of climate activists.
Now, the Trump EPA, led by Administrator Lee Zeldin, appears poised to dismantle this house of cards. Zeldin’s draft proposal argues that the EPA overstepped its authority by issuing such a sweeping determination.
The plan focuses on a legal argument that the EPA’s administrator lacks the power to make broad proclamations about greenhouse gases without specific congressional authorization. This is a direct jab at the 2007 Supreme Court decision, a judicial overreach that gave unelected bureaucrats a blank check to regulate the economy. It is key to also remember that that decision came at a time when the Chevron Deference, which the Court did away with a year ago, was still in effect.
Adopted in 1984, the Chevron Deference held that courts must defer to the judgment of regulators when interpreting the congressional intent of federal statutes. But the Clean Air Act was never designed to regulate CO2, a point even the late Rep. John Dingell, a co-author of the law, made clear.
Of course, the climate alarm lobby will drag this fight into the courts, so overturning the finding will not be easy. The EPA must navigate a minefield of procedural requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act, and the alarmists will try to overwhelm the courts with claims that climate change has only grown since 2009, asserting that every extreme weather event somehow proves their case.
But the Trump administration isn’t denying climate change outright; it’s questioning whether the EPA has the legal authority to act as America’s climate czar. This is a fight worth having, because if the agency can regulate CO2 without clear congressional approval, what’s stopping it from declaring water vapor a pollutant next?
The bigger picture here illustrates the absurdity of the energy transition itself. The endangerment finding has been a cudgel to force a shift away from reliable, affordable fossil fuels toward a fantasy of windmills and solar panels that can’t power a modern economy. The U.S. is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases globally, but even if we zeroed out emissions tomorrow, global temperatures would barely budge without similar action from China and India.
Meanwhile, Americans bear the brunt of higher energy costs and a less reliable grid. Rescinding the endangerment finding could free up the economy to innovate without the EPA’s heavy hand, letting market forces—not bureaucrats—drive energy and climate solutions.
This move is a bold step toward dismantling the regulatory state’s stranglehold on American energy. It won’t be quick or easy, and the climate zealots will fight tooth and nail. But if the Trump administration can pull it off, it’ll be a victory for common sense over green dogma, a win for innovation over regulation. A long, hard fight lies ahead, but it is one worth having, and which is long overdue.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
