California Attorney General Rob Bonta Denounces EPA’s Rescission of Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, Vows to Sue

Federal rollback violates well-settled law, putting fossil fuel industry’s profits over American’s health and safety 

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today denounced the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final rule rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which formally acknowledged that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles contribute to air pollution that drives climate change and endangers public health and welfare. The EPA’s withdrawal of the Endangerment Finding, which also includes a repeal of the entire federal vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards program, removes critical protections that limit vehicle emissions, even as climate change increasingly threatens human health, safety, and economic stability. In making the decision to eliminate these protections, the EPA ignores decades of scientific consensus and Supreme Court precedent, endangering the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans, particularly those in communities disproportionately impacted by environmental harms. 

“Under President Trump, the EPA has been consistent in its disregard for the high cost its decisions have on human health. The repeal is not just a step backward — it is a reckless rejection of decades of scientific evidence supporting the Endangerment Finding and a violation of well-settled law, ultimately putting the fossil fuel industry’s profits ahead of the health and safety of Americans,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Climate change is not a distant threat; it is already harming Californians through increased wildfires, rising sea levels, and extreme heat. While the federal administration attempts to undo environmental protections backed by science, California will challenge this illegal action in court, and will continue fighting to defend public health, uphold environmental justice, and protect future generations.” 

Under the federal Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to regulate pollutants, including greenhouse gas emissions, that cause or contribute to dangerous air pollution. The 2009 Endangerment Finding confirmed that the emission of six key greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles contributes to climate change, which threatens human health, welfare, and the environment. Over the past 17 years, abundant and highly consistent scientific research has reinforced the Finding, documenting the connection between greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures, worsening wildfires, extreme heat events, and related public health impacts. Despite this robust evidence, the EPA’s final rule withdraws the Endangerment Finding and eliminates all existing and future federal greenhouse gas standards for vehicles. 

In last summer’s proposal, EPA claimed that an updated review of climate science “cast significant doubt” on the Endangerment Finding, based on a report by the Department of Energy’s “Climate Working Group” — a quintet of climate change contrarians hand-picked by the Secretary of Energy to dispute the scientific consensus. That group quickly foundered in the face of legal challenges and never released a final report. Their draft report, circulated by the group in July and cited throughout EPA’s proposal, was met with an outpouring of criticism from scientists. And the group violated federal law so profoundly that even this administration was “not contesting” the merits of legal challenges. Despite the administration’s attempt to contort science having failed, it nonetheless seeks to throw out decades of scientific consensus on climate change.

This federal withdrawal will cause an unprecedented disruption to 15 years of regulatory progress, threatening public health, local communities, industries, natural resources, and public investments. As the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, the transportation sector will see increasing climate-destabilizing pollution, while American investment in future technologies, new factories, and jobs will decline, undermining U.S. leadership in this sector as well as in addressing climate change.