Following the Trump administration’s attempt to end the highly popular Energy Star program last year—the $33 million program was saved with bipartisan support—it, in case you missed it, has rescinded the central scientific finding that underpins much of the nation’s climate pollution rules, its most aggressive action yet to halt initiatives that address planetary warming.
According to NPR, the 2009 Environmental Protection Agency endangerment finding was a determination that pollutants from developing and burning fossil fuels, such as methane and carbon dioxide, can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The EPA now argues that the Clean Air Act does not give it the legal authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
“Under President Trump’s leadership today, the Trump EPA has finalized the single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin at the White House, with President Trump at his side.
Just as the auto industry had been ramping up its efforts to roll out more hybrid and electric vehicles, the EPA is ending rules to reduce climate pollution from cars and trucks. Transportation is the largest source of direct greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
“This is a slap in the face to the millions of Americans who are living through climate disasters and their aftermath,” says Abigail Dillen, President of Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law group. “And we will see this administration in court, to ensure that our government does its job to protect us.”
Will Our Industry Follow Along?
With a large chunk of our industry set to continue to reduce emissions in the coming years, I have yet to see a hotel industry company stating that it too is going to put the brakes on its efforts.
The administration’s decision comes in the wake of the three hottest years humans have ever recorded, deadly flooding in communities across the U.S. from Texas to Alaska and climate-fueled wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes in Los Angeles.
Our president in the past has called climate change a “hoax” and a “con job.”
The president’s move will make it more difficult for future administrations to limit the human-caused greenhouse gas pollution heating the planet. And it’s almost certain to lead to years of court battles that will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
NPR says that in 2007, the Supreme Court found in Massachusetts v. EPA that the agency is required to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Then in 2009, during the Obama administration, the EPA declared that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were a hazard to people.
Zeldin first announced the EPA’s intention to eliminate the endangerment finding last March.
“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more,” Zeldin said in a news release at the time.
What This Means for Cars
The EPA’s limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks have been central to the agency’s years-long push to make the U.S. auto industry sell less-polluting vehicles. Under the Biden administration, the standards became more ambitious than ever, setting limits so low that in order to meet them, the White House expected automakers would make electric vehicles up to 56 percent of their sales by 2032.
The Trump administration has now entirely eliminated those restrictions on climate pollution from vehicles. That’s part of a multipronged rollback of policies meant to support EVs. The administration has also blocked California’s longstanding ability to set its own vehicle rules and made federal fuel economy rules less stringent. Meanwhile, Congress has eliminated penalties for noncompliance with those fuel economy rules, essentially giving automakers free rein to focus on large, less-efficient gas and diesel vehicles.
The Trump administration and Congress have also eliminated a consumer tax credit for electric vehicles and delayed, blocked and redirected federal money that was meant to support the buildout of electric vehicle charging stations.
The EPA’s greenhouse gas limits for cars benefited all-electric automakers like Tesla and Rivian, but traditional automakers argued that the Biden-era rules were out of step with market realities. Even with the consumer tax credit and other incentives, EVs made up around 10 percent of new car sales in 2024, and growth of EVs had flagged as mainstream buyers were slow to embrace them. Sales were nowhere near on track to hit the EPA’s targets.
As a result, the auto industry was broadly enthusiastic about plans to weaken EV regulations. However, constant regulatory whipsawing creates a headache for them when it comes to product planning, which needs to be done years in advance. Automakers are also watching with increasing anxiety as Chinese automakers release more impressive and more affordable EVs every year. Executives say that they need to invest in EVs to be competitive long-term. MEMA, the trade group representing the manufacturers who supply parts to automakers, asked the EPA to keep greenhouse gas rules in place, to provide stability that would help U.S. companies stay competitive in the global EV race.”
The U.S. is the largest historical emitter of manmade climate pollution and, under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, agreed to contribute to the global effort to reduce emissions and limit warming. Trump has withdrawn the U.S. from that agreement and a 1992 treaty that underlies it.
Environmentalists say Trump’s EPA is ignoring the costs of damage from extreme weather fueled by climate change when it estimates that eliminating regulations based on the endangerment finding will save trillions. And they argue the science about the risks of climate change were clear in 2009, when the endangerment finding was issued—and are even more clear now.
“The Trump administration is trying to upend very well settled law, about what our Clean Air Act not only allows but requires our government to do, to protect us from climate change,” Dillen says.
