Trump’s Climate Policy Rollback Plan Relies on EPA Rescinding its 2009 Endangerment Finding, But Will Courts Allow It?

Navajo Generating Station, near Page, Arizona. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

In 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally declared that greenhouse gas emissions, including from vehicles and fossil fuel power plants, endanger public health and welfare. The decision, known as the endangerment finding, was based on years of evidence, and it has underpinned EPA actions on climate change ever since.

The Trump administration now wants to tear up that finding as it tries to roll...