New York and 23 other states filed a lawsuit Thursday (March 19) challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to rescind a landmark 2009 scientific determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health. The legal challenge, joined by a dozen cities and counties, seeks to reverse what the White House has called "the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history."
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and is being led by Massachusetts, California, New York, and Connecticut. According to The Guardian, the states argue the EPA's February rescission of the endangerment finding was illegal and violated provisions in the Clean Air Act.
"Across our country, communities are already suffering from climate disasters," said Letitia James, the New York attorney general, in a statement. "From freak storms to devastating floods to deadly cold snaps and unbearable heat waves, the climate crisis is here, and it is already reshaping the way we live. Instead of helping Americans face our new reality, the Trump administration has chosen denial, repealing critical protections that are foundational to the federal government's response to climate change."
The endangerment finding, established in 2009 during the Obama administration, determined that carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. For more than 16 years, this scientific determination served as the legal foundation for federal regulations on emissions from cars, power plants, and other significant sources of greenhouse gas pollution.
President Donald Trump announced the repeal in February, calling the endangerment finding "a disastrous Obama-era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers." As reported by ABC News, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the decision "restores consumer choice, makes more affordable vehicles available for American families, and decreases the cost of living on all products by lowering the cost of trucks."
The EPA claims the Clean Air Act only applies to pollution "that harms health or the environment through local and regional exposure," not greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change. Zeldin argued that Congress never authorized the regulation of the six greenhouse gases included in the endangerment finding.
"EPA carefully considered and reevaluated the legal foundation of the 2009 Endangerment Finding," an EPA spokesperson told the BBC. "In the absence of such authority, the endangerment finding is not valid, and EPA cannot retain the regulations that resulted from it."
However, scientific evidence linking greenhouse gas emissions to climate change has only strengthened since 2009. In September, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that the EPA's 2009 determination was accurate and is now supported by even stronger scientific evidence, with many uncertainties that existed at the time now resolved.
The lawsuit seeks to reinstate the endangerment finding and reverse the EPA's repeal of all limits on greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. The BBC reports that 17 cities, counties, and state agencies have joined the 23 states in the legal challenge, including New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
The court may consolidate the new case with another lawsuit filed by environmental groups in February. The endangerment finding has been repeatedly affirmed and upheld amid previous challenges, including a 2012 ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that found the EPA's findings were supported by substantial evidence.