A Victory for Science, Sovereignty, and Sensible Policy: The Trump EPA Revisits the 2009 Endangerment Finding

The CPAC Foundation’s Center for Regulatory Freedom (CRF) proudly commends the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for taking the courageous, necessary step of revisiting one of the most consequential and controversial regulatory determinations in modern U.S. environmental policy: the 2009 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding.

As announced in the EPA’s Federal Register notice (Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0124), this long-overdue review signals a return to regulatory rationality, a reaffirmation of constitutional governance, and a crucial recognition that sound science, not ideological consensus, must anchor national environmental policy.

This announcement is not occurring in a vacuum. It comes in direct response to the tireless advocacy of CPAC and its partners in the free-market movement, which have for years documented the methodological flaws, legal vulnerabilities, and sweeping economic harms of the 2009 Endangerment Finding. With the Trump administration’s Executive Order 14154 ("Unleashing American Energy") instructing the EPA to revisit this flawed foundation, the CRF is proud to see its recommendations, research, and regulatory priorities being implemented at the highest levels of government.

A Recap: The 2009 Endangerment Finding and Its Legacy

The 2009 Endangerment Finding formed the legal scaffolding for a decade and a half of expansive climate regulation under the Clean Air Act (CAA). Citing six greenhouse gases as endangering “public health and welfare,” the finding, issued in the wake of the Supreme Court's Massachusetts v. EPA decision, enabled the federal government to implement sweeping emissions controls on everything from motor vehicles to power plants and industrial facilities.

But from the beginning, CRF and others questioned the evidentiary basis of this finding. The EPA relied primarily on the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) for its conclusions, an assessment riddled with acknowledged errors, political bias in author selection, and deeply flawed methodologies. Among the most infamous: the false claim that Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035, and exaggerated claims about the Netherlands being submerged below sea level, claims the IPCC failed to correct before publication, and which the EPA dismissed as “minor.”

As detailed in our open letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, CRF has repeatedly demonstrated how the 2009 Endangerment Finding built a towering regulatory superstructure atop shaky scientific footings and a politically influenced international process. Worse, the EPA’s reliance on speculative, unvalidated climate projections weaponized federal regulatory power against sectors vital to U.S. economic sovereignty: energy production, manufacturing, agriculture, and transportation.

A Regulatory Overreach of Historic Proportions

The Endangerment Finding, since 2009, has been the linchpin for hundreds of billions of dollars in regulatory burdens. It transformed the Clean Air Act, an act written to tackle conventional pollutants, into a climate policy tool without explicit congressional authorization. The result was predictable: ballooning compliance costs, administrative complexity, and reduced energy reliability. Under the Obama and Biden administrations, this metastasized into a broader ideological project, what the Wall Street Journal called the "Green New Bureaucracy", with impacts rippling through SEC disclosures, energy permitting, ESG mandates, and even banking rules.

CRF’s 100 Recommendations for the First 100 Days explicitly called for revisiting and rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding. We underscored its role in fueling regulatory sprawl, bypassing the legislative process, and subordinating American energy interests to globalist climate goals.

This recommendation wasn’t rhetorical. It reflected the direct experiences of small businesses and families suffering under soaring electricity costs, fertilizer shortages, pipeline delays, and utility unreliability—all consequences of a regulatory system constructed on a deeply flawed predicate.

Our Advocacy: From the Margins to the Mainstream

CRF’s influence on this development is undeniable. In our formal letter to Administrator Zeldin, we urged a reassessment of the 2009 Finding as inconsistent with modern scientific scrutiny and incompatible with the America First energy doctrine. We referenced not only scientific missteps in the IPCC’s AR4 but also the EPA’s disregard for peer-reviewed critiques that should have raised red flags.

This letter followed a years-long campaign:

• In our “100 Recommendations” document, we called for not just the re-evaluation of environmental rulemakings but a halt to the Biden administration’s expansion of climate-driven regulatory mandates.

• Through comments on ESG mandates by the SEC, we highlighted how climate regulation was leaking beyond EPA jurisdiction, creating a shadow regime of disclosure burdens and activist compliance regimes.

• We repeatedly criticized the 2023 Circular A-4 revisions for their inclusion of international benefits in domestic cost-benefit calculations—a method that smuggles climate activism into ostensibly neutral regulatory analysis.

• And through allied coalitions, we tracked and opposed dozens of Biden-era rules that were ultimately enabled by the legal foundation the 2009 Finding created.

  
  

Today, with the EPA’s announcement, the pendulum is finally swinging back.

Why This Matters: Scientific Integrity and National Sovereignty

Revisiting the Endangerment Finding is about more than regulatory housekeeping—it is about restoring scientific and constitutional integrity.

1. Reclaiming Sound Science 

The EPA’s reliance on the IPCC—an unelected, international, politically compromised body—violated the principle of independent scientific review. Even prominent scientists affiliated with the IPCC, such as Georg Kaser, warned about serious flaws in the data used in AR4. Yet EPA dismissed legitimate criticisms as inconsequential, even when they involved verifiably false claims about glacier melt or sea level data. That must end.

2. Restoring Constitutional Governance

CRF and IRAE have consistently argued, the 2009 Finding marked a disturbing turn: unelected bureaucrats enacting transformative climate policy without congressional direction. Massachusetts v. EPA never required the agency to act without due process or judicial restraint. Reversing the 2009 Finding will reassert that regulatory power must be exercised with clear legislative grounding.

3. Reclaiming National Sovereignty

By incorporating global climate benefits into domestic regulatory costs, the Obama and Biden administrations subordinated U.S. economic interests to international agendas. The Trump EPA’s move to revisit the Endangerment Finding is a reaffirmation of America’s right to control its destiny—environmental, economic, and political.

A New Foundation: Cost-Benefit Reform and Opportunity Cost Recognition

As this administration re-examines the foundational assumptions of climate regulation, it must also repair the analytical tools used to justify them.

CRF’s petition to OMB in January 2025 called out the Biden-era Circular A-4 for its abandonment of objective, opportunity-cost-inclusive cost-benefit analysis. As we wrote then, “By prioritizing distributional effects over economic efficiency, the revisions risk distorting the regulatory process.” The same applies to climate policy.

One particularly important correction is the incorporation of opportunity costs into climate-related regulations. Using the Dawson-Seater model, CRF and IRAE have shown that for every $1 in direct regulatory cost, there is an estimated $19 in lost economic opportunity. The 2009 Finding ignored this multiplier effect entirely. That must change.

Regulatory Cost Corrections: The Truth About Trump-Era Emissions Policy

One of the persistent myths propagated by the Left is that the Trump administration was deregulatory in rhetoric only. Our updated analysis at CRF now tells a far more compelling story.

Between 2017 and 2021, unadjusted regulatory cost growth averaged a negligible +0.33% per year. But when adjusted for inflation, the cost of the federal regulatory state declined by 6.5%, confirming that federal rules became less burdensome in real terms during that period.

The Center’s recalculation of regulatory costs makes it clear: the Trump administration did not merely stall regulatory growth; it rolled it back in real terms. And key to that rollback was its refusal to implement further expansions of GHG rules based on the flawed 2009 Finding.

Now, by revisiting that finding, the Trump EPA has a chance to achieve what earlier administrations never could: dismantle the entire climate regulatory scaffold built on bad science and judicial activism.

CRF Recommendations Going Forward, As the EPA Conducts Its Review

Full Revocation of the 2009 Finding

The Agency should conclude that the original endangerment finding lacked a valid scientific basis and was impermissibly reliant on non-peer-reviewed and politically influenced reports.

Reinstate Domestic-Only Cost-Benefit Analyses

EPA must eliminate international benefits from its calculus, as recommended in CRF’s A-4 petition and consistent with the America First doctrine.

Mandate Opportunity Cost Assessments

Every future EPA rulemaking must quantify not just compliance costs, but lost innovation, capital diversion, and productivity costs.

Suspend All GHG Rulemakings Pending Review

Until a new, scientifically and economically sound framework is developed, EPA should pause all GHG-related regulatory proceedings.

Work With Congress to Clarify Limits on EPA Authority

Congress must reassert its primacy over major climate policy decisions—no more regulation through litigation or executive fiat.

Conclusion: Regulatory Realignment, Not Regulatory Relapse

This moment marks not just a policy correction, but a constitutional, scientific, and economic course correction. The Trump EPA’s decision to revisit the 2009 Endangerment Finding represents a long-awaited break from a regulatory regime that has consistently placed ideology over evidence, internationalism over national interest, and bureaucracy over democratic accountability.

The CPAC Foundation’s Center for Regulatory Freedom applauds this bold step, and we remain ready to assist in building a better regulatory future—one rooted in sound science, American sovereignty, and constitutional accountability.

As President Trump rightly stated, “Energy is national security. And regulation should never be used as a weapon against the prosperity of the American people.” With the Endangerment Finding finally under scrutiny, that vision is one step closer to reality.

CRF will be submitting detailed comments in response to EPA's notice and is hoping to testify at EPA's public hearing on this issue in July.