Rescinding Obama's "Endangerment Finding"... Truly Historic

The rescission of the 2009 Endangerment Finding is one of the most significant regulatory reversals in modern American history.

For fifteen years, that single administrative determination served as the legal keystone of federal climate regulation. By declaring that carbon dioxide “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and welfare” under the Clean Air Act, the federal government unlocked authority to regulate nearly every sector of the American economy.

Power plants. Automobiles. Manufacturing. Oil and gas production. Financial disclosures. Housing construction. Even supply-chain reporting regimes.

Everything flowed from that predicate.

Its rescission is not a technical adjustment. It is a structural reset.

What Was at Stake in 2009

The Clean Air Act was written to address localized air pollutants—sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter—substances with direct, measurable health impacts. It was never designed as a global climate statute.

But when the Endangerment Finding was issued, CO₂—a ubiquitous, naturally occurring gas essential for plant life—was reclassified as a regulated pollutant. That reclassification transformed the statute.

After Congress declined to pass cap-and-trade legislation, the executive branch pivoted. The Endangerment Finding became the administrative mechanism to advance climate policy without new legislative authority.

From that moment forward:

• Vehicle emissions standards became greenhouse gas mandates.

• Power-sector regulation expanded under CO₂ authority.

• Industrial permitting incorporated carbon accounting.

• Financial regulators justified “climate risk” rules.

• States layered on complementary mandates built on the federal predicate.

The Endangerment Finding turned the Clean Air Act into a climate planning tool.

That is why its rescission is historic. It dismantles the legal architecture that enabled that transformation.

The Costs Imposed Over Fifteen Years

The consequences of that transformation were not theoretical. They were economic, cumulative, and systemic.

1. Rising Vehicle Costs

Greenhouse gas fleet standards required manufacturers to embed increasingly complex compliance technologies into vehicles—lightweight materials, advanced turbocharging, electrification components, calibration software, and fleet-balancing strategies.

Those costs were embedded into MSRP.

For families financing a vehicle over five or six years, even modest compliance-driven increases translated into higher monthly payments.

When regulatory policy narrows the availability of conventional internal combustion vehicles or forces cross-subsidization within fleet mixes, affordability suffers—especially for middle-income families who rely on used vehicle markets.

2. Higher Energy System Costs

Treating CO₂ as a pollutant triggered layers of regulatory pressure on the power sector. Even where individual rules were contested, the cumulative effect was clear:

• Increased regulatory uncertainty.

• Higher capital costs for generation investment.

• Accelerated retirement of firm power without scalable nuclear replacement.

• Greater reliance on intermittent generation and fragile supply chains.

Energy is an input into everything—manufacturing, food production, housing materials, transportation logistics. When regulatory structures increase system risk or capital cost, those effects propagate across the economy.

Electricity bills may not spike overnight from a single rule, but long-term cost trajectories change.

Affordability is about trajectory.

3. Industrial and Manufacturing Competitiveness

For energy-intensive industries, CO₂-based permitting requirements layered additional compliance complexity onto facility upgrades and expansions.

That complexity increased project timelines, raised financing risk, and in many cases incentivized production relocation abroad.

The irony is stark: domestic regulatory burdens often pushed production to jurisdictions with weaker standards and higher emissions intensity, yielding no meaningful global emissions reduction while hollowing out American communities.

4. Regulatory Spillover into Finance and Supply Chains

Once CO₂ was treated as a dangerous pollutant, the regulatory logic expanded beyond smokestacks and tailpipes.

Financial regulators advanced climate disclosure mandates. States adopted Scope 3 reporting requirements. Corporations faced pressure to quantify and report carbon footprints across global supply chains.

Compliance departments grew. Reporting systems expanded. Legal exposure increased.

These costs are rarely visible on a monthly bill, but they are embedded in the price of goods and services families buy every day.

CPAC’s Opposition: From Day One

From the moment the Endangerment Finding was issued, CPAC policy leaders warned that it represented a fundamental shift in administrative power.

The argument was consistent and principled:

• The Clean Air Act was being stretched beyond its statutory design.

• Major economic transformation should occur through Congress, not regulatory reinterpretation.

• The scientific basis required scrutiny commensurate with the scale of economic consequences.

• The cost burdens would fall hardest on working families.

For fifteen years, that position did not change.

When President Trump was re-elected, CPAC's Center for Regulatory Freedom filed comments, participated in proceedings, analyzed rulemakings, and consistently connected regulatory discipline to consumer affordability.

The through-line was simple: environmental policy must not become economic central planning by administrative decree.

Renewed Advocacy After President Trump’s Return

When President Donald Trump returned to office for a second term, the opportunity to revisit the Endangerment Finding became real.

From the outset of the second administration, CPAC advocated for a full reassessment.

Not as a symbolic gesture.Not as partisan retaliation.But as a matter of statutory clarity and economic discipline.

The Endangerment Finding was the keystone. Without revisiting it, regulatory layering would continue.

CPAC urged:

• A fresh examination of the scientific record.

• A reconsideration of economic impact.

• A reassessment of statutory authority.

• A restoration of democratic accountability in climate policy.

Rescinding the Endangerment Finding does not eliminate environmental stewardship. It restores boundaries.

Why This Is a Generational Moment

The rescission matters for four enduring reasons.

1. It Restores Statutory Alignment

It reaffirms that the Clean Air Act is not an open-ended authorization for global climate governance. Major climate policy must come from Congress.

2. It Resets Energy Strategy

It removes the automatic legal presumption that CO₂ must be regulated under the Clean Air Act framework, allowing energy policy to focus on reliability, affordability, and technological neutrality.

3. It Changes the Cost Trajectory

Rescission will not instantly lower next month’s electricity bill. But it removes a structural driver of escalating compliance layering and regulatory risk.

For families, that means improved affordability over time—lower embedded vehicle costs, more supply elasticity in energy markets, and reduced upward pressure across the goods economy.

4. It Reasserts Administrative Accountability

Agencies must revisit foundational determinations when their economic consequences prove profound, and their legal footing is contested.

The Endangerment Finding was never a minor rule. It reshaped trillions of dollars in economic activity.

Rescinding it demonstrates that no administrative determination is beyond reassessment.

When it was announced, CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp said the rescission marks a major correction in federal regulatory policy:

“For years, the 2009 Endangerment Finding has been used to justify sweeping regulations that reshaped our energy economy without clear congressional authorization. It became the legal foundation for mandates that drove up costs for families, weakened American energy reliability, and expanded administrative power beyond what Congress intended. President Trump’s action restores constitutional guardrails and reaffirms that major economic decisions must come from elected lawmakers, not unelected regulators."

Andrew Langer, Director of the CPAC Foundation Center for Regulatory Freedom, added:

"The decision by President Trump and Administrator Zeldin to rescind the Endangerment Finding marks an entirely new chapter in regulatory reform. In doing this, they defy every naysayer who said it was simply impossible to undo, that you couldn't, via a thorough administrative process, undo one of the most dangerous and expensive regulatory decisions ever levied by a presidency. When others said it was couldn't be done, President Trump and Administrator Zeldin said, yes... it can."

The Beginning of a New Regulatory Chapter

The rescission of the 2009 Endangerment Finding marks the most consequential recalibration of American environmental governance in a generation. For fifteen years, it functioned as the legal keystone of federal climate regulation. Its removal does not end the debate about climate or energy policy. It restores the proper venue for that debate. Congress must legislate. Agencies must administer within statutory limits. Economic transformation must not proceed by regulatory reinterpretation alone.

For CPAC, this moment represents the culmination of sustained, principled opposition—and the beginning of a new chapter in disciplined, affordability-focused regulatory reform. History will record the Endangerment Finding as the turning point that expanded administrative climate authority.

History may well record its rescission as the moment that restored balance.