CLF: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sued over illegal repeal of climate protections
Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), as
part of a broad coalition of health and environmental groups, has sued
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its illegal
determination that it is not responsible for protecting us from climate
pollution and its elimination of rules to cut the tailpipe pollution fueling
the climate crisis and harming people’s health.
The case,
filed in the D.C. Circuit, challenges the Trump EPA’s rescission of the 2009
endangerment finding, which found that climate pollution is a threat to public
health and welfare. The finding supported common-sense safeguards to cut that
pollution, including from cars and trucks. In addition, the agency eliminated
the clean vehicle standards, which were set to deliver the single biggest cut
to U.S. carbon pollution in history, save lives, and save Americans’
hard-earned money on gas.
The case was brought by:
- The American
Public Health Association, American Lung Association, Alliance
of Nurses for a Healthy Environment, Clean Wisconsin,
represented by Clean Air Task Force (CATF),
- Center
for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ), Clean
Air Council, Friends of the Earth, Physicians for
Social Responsibility, Rio Grande International Study Center (RGISC),
and the Union of Concerned Scientists, represented
by Earthjustice, and
- Center
for Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental
Defense Fund, Environmental Law & Policy Center, NRDC (Natural
Resources Defense Council), Public Citizen, and Sierra
Club.
The named defendants are EPA Administrator Lee
Zeldin and EPA itself as an agency.
“Taking away the endangerment finding doesn’t protect
families — it abandons them,” said Conservation Law Foundation Senior Vice
President for Law and Policy Kate Sinding Daly. “This scientific
determination has for years served as the bedrock of our nation’s efforts to
curb deadly pollution and safeguard public health and welfare. Taking it away
only absolves the EPA of acting on behalf of every family in the country. We
won’t let that stand and we’re prepared to take this fight to court to ensure
our communities aren’t left to bear the consequences of unchecked
climate-warming pollution.”
Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is legally required to limit vehicle emissions of any “air pollutant” that the agency determines “cause or contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”
In 2007, the United States Supreme Court held in Massachusetts v. EPA that
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases unambiguously are “air pollutants”
under the Clean Air Act and told EPA to determine, based on the science, if
that pollution endangers human health and welfare. EPA made that determination
in 2009, which led to new standards for vehicles. It built on that finding when
issuing other standards.
In its repeal, the Trump EPA is rehashing legal arguments
that the Supreme Court already considered and rejected in Massachusetts
v. EPA.
Along with the repeal of the endangerment finding, the EPA
eliminated all carbon emissions standards from vehicles. The EPA’s clean car
standards set in 2024 would save drivers
of new cars an average of $6,000 over the lifetime of their
vehicles. The EPA’s
own analysis found that eliminating vehicle standards will
increase gas prices, force Americans to spend more on fuel, and have a net
negative effect on the economy.
QUOTES:
“Ignoring the scientific evidence of the threat climate
pollution poses to the health of all of us sends a very wrong message to
communities across the nation and around the world. EPA has a duty to consider
the well-being and safety of all, and the science is clear; climate change and
air pollution threaten everyone’s health,” said Georges C. Benjamin,
MD, Chief Executive Officer of the American Public Health Association. “To
reverse course now, and to also repeal limits on climate pollution from
vehicles, puts everyone in the country at risk of experiencing serious and
preventable harm. It also weakens our nation’s ability to address the severe
health impacts caused by climate change.”
“EPA’s mission is to protect human health and the
environment,” said Harold Wimmer, President and CEO, American Lung
Association. “Repealing the Endangerment Finding and vehicle
emission safeguards weakens important protections against air pollution that
harm lung health. On behalf of the millions of people living with lung disease
and everyone who breathes, the American Lung Association is committed to
upholding the law and protecting public health.”
“We need to call the Trump Administration’s repeal of the
Engagement Finding what it is – climate denialism and the EPA abandoning its
responsibility to protect us from climate change,” said Katie Huffling,
DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN, Executive Director, Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy
Environment. “The EPA is legally required to protect against air pollution that
endangers the public’s health. It’s time that the EPA be held accountable for
these reckless actions and get back to its mission to protect human health and
the environment.”
“Repealing the endangerment finding and vehicle emissions
standards are among the most destructive and irresponsible actions taken by the
Trump EPA to date,” said Katie Nekola, General Counsel, Clean
Wisconsin. “The dangers of climate change are becoming ever more apparent as
Wisconsin experiences record heat, toxic air from wildfire smoke, and extreme
weather. The EPA is ignoring its legal duty to protect our communities from the
heath harms of greenhouse gas emissions in its zealous pandering to big oil,
gas and coal interests.”
“As the nonpartisan National Academies stated last fall, the
endangerment finding ‘was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now
reinforced by even stronger evidence.’ No amount of legal sophistry from this
administration or EPA can evade the well settled statutory requirements and
those scientific conclusions,” said Frank Sturges, Attorney at
Clean Air Task Force. “The Clean Air Act’s requirements are simple: protect
public health and welfare from air pollutants that endanger them. On the law
and on the science, greenhouse gases fit that bill. To protect public health
and the environment, we will challenge this unlawful action in court, and when
the dust settles, we will prevail.”
“Here in the Inland Valley, climate change isn’t some
abstract future threat—it’s something our families live with every day. It’s
parents worrying about their kids’ asthma as diesel trucks rumble past schools
and neighborhoods. It’s workers commuting through smog and extreme heat, and
families cutting short time outdoors because the air simply isn’t safe to
breathe, it’s wildfires and flooding,” said Ana Gonzalez, Executive
Director of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice. “By
trying to repeal the endangerment finding and weaken vehicle greenhouse gas
standards, the Trump administration’s EPA is abandoning its legal duty to
protect communities like ours. That decision would lock in more pollution, more
dangerous heat, and more health risks—threatening our well-being, our local
economy, and our children’s future. We won’t stand by while climate denial
becomes official policy and puts the Inland Valley at risk.”
“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,” said Lawrence Hafetz, Clean Air Council’s Legal Director.
“By repealing the finding, we are sweeping the single deadliest type of
pollution, climate pollution, under the rug. Deadly floods, droughts,
wildfires, and hurricanes are harming our health, our communities, and our
economy. This climate chaos plan is decimating the EPA’s ability to act when we
need protections more than ever.”
“Today’s lawsuit makes clear that we will not idly stand by
while EPA blatantly refutes its core mission to protect the environment and
public health from dangerous pollution,” said Hallie Templeton,
Legal Director for Friends of the Earth. “The science is overwhelmingly clear
that greenhouse gases cause harm, yet the Trump administration has unlawfully
chosen to benefit polluters at the planet’s expense. We will keep fighting and
holding these bad actors accountable in court for their lawlessness.”
“The EPA’s rollback of the endangerment finding is a
devastating decision that goes against the science and testimony of countless
scientists, health care professionals, and public health practitioners,” said
Ankush K. Bansal, MD, DCM, FACP, FACPM, SFHM, Physicians for Social
Responsibility Board President. “It will result in direct harm to the health of
Americans throughout the country, particularly children, older adults, those
with chronic illnesses, and other vulnerable populations, rural to urban, red
and blue, of all races and incomes. The increased exposure to harmful
pollutants and other greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel production and
consumption will make America sicker, not healthier, less prosperous, not more,
for generations to come.”
“Revoking the Endangerment Finding sets our country down a
dangerous path that will have unimaginable consequences for so many. It ignores
the real harms that people and communities like ours along the Rio Grande in
South Texas are already experiencing from declining rainfall, heat, and fragile
ecosystems,” said Tricia Cortez, Executive Director of Rio Grande
International Study Center. “We have a moral obligation to our current and
future generations to protect their future and the well-being of our planet’s
climate. We must act now to tackle and reduce all sources of harm. We need our
national leaders to do everything in their power to protect our human race, and
to leave behind a habitable and thriving world for those to come after us.”
“EPA’s repeal of the endangerment finding and safeguards to
limit vehicle emissions marks a complete dereliction of the agency’s mission to
protect people’s health and its legal obligation under the Clean Air Act. This
shameful and dangerous action by the Trump administration and EPA Administrator
Zeldin is rooted in falsehoods not facts and is at complete odds with the
public interest and the best available science. Heat-trapping emissions and
global average temperatures are rising—primarily due to the burning of fossil
fuels—contributing to a mounting human and economic toll across the nation.
This anti-science administration must be held to account for evading its
responsibility to help address this acute crisis and we’re going to help make
sure that happens,” said Dr. Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO at
the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“With this action, EPA flips its mission on its head,”
said Hana Vizcarra, senior attorney at Earthjustice. “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. Earthjustice and
our partners will defend what we all know to be true: climate pollution is
harming our health, welfare, and economy and EPA has an obligation to control
these harmful emissions.”
“We’re suing to stop Trump from torching our kids’ future in
favor of a monster handout to oil companies,” said David Pettit, an
attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.
“Nobody but Big Oil profits from Trump trashing climate science and making cars
and trucks guzzle and pollute more. Consumers will pay more to fill up, and our
skies and oceans will fill up with more pollution. The EPA’s rollbacks are
based on political poppycock, not science or law, and the courts should see it
that way.”
“Repealing the Endangerment Finding endangers all of us.
People everywhere will face more pollution, higher costs, and thousands of
avoidable deaths,” said Peter Zalzal, Distinguished Counsel and
Associate Vice President of Clean Air Strategies at Environmental Defense Fund.
“The Trump EPA’s action tramples mountains of scientific evidence, ignores the
law, and is fundamentally at odds with EPA’s core responsibility to protect us
from dangerous pollution. We are challenging this action in court, where
evidence matters, and we will continue working together to build a better,
safer and more prosperous future.”
“This is not a mere rollback. EPA is attempting to
completely disavow its statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gases from
motor vehicles. After two decades of scientific evidence supporting the 2009
finding, the agency cannot credibly claim that the body of work is now
incorrect. This reckless and legally untenable decision creates immediate
uncertainty for businesses, guarantees prolonged legal battles, and undermines
the stability of federal climate regulations. EPA cannot be permitted to abandon
its responsibility to protect public health and welfare,” said Brian
Lynk, Senior Attorney, Environmental Law & Policy Center.
“The Trump EPA’s slapdash legal arguments should be laughed
out of court. Undercutting the ability of the federal government to tackle the
largest source of climate pollution is deadly serious, but the administration’s
legal and scientific reasons for doing so are a joke,” said Meredith
Hankins, legal director for federal climate at NRDC.
“The repeal of the EPA’s endangerment finding is illegal,
and if allowed to stand, it will have devastating impacts on public health and
a livable climate for decades,” said Adina Rosenbaum, attorney with
Public Citizen Litigation Group.
“The Trump administration’s reckless decision to rescind the Endangerment Finding and strip the EPA of its primary authority to regulate greenhouse gases will have disastrous consequences for the American people, our health, and our shared future,” said Joanne Spalding, Director of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program. “In the early 2000s, the Sierra Club brought the first-ever lawsuit seeking federal greenhouse gas standards under the Clean Air Act, and as a result, these protections became a reality. Nearly 25 years later, we’re taking Lee Zeldin and Donald Trump’s EPA to court because people should not be forced to suffer for this administration’s blind allegiance to the fossil fuel industry and corporate polluters. This shortsighted rollback is blatantly unlawful and their efforts to force this upon the American people will fail.”
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