Counting The Growing Cost of President Trump’s Environmental Policy

On February 12, 2026, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin stood next to President Trump and called the repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding “the single largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.” He was likely correct. With this move, the legal basis for all federal greenhouse gas regulation for cars, power plants, and oil fields was removed at once.

This headline-making move was just the most visible part of 14 months of steady rollbacks of U.S. environmental and public health protections...