The EPA Is in Danger

Guest Opinion

Red alert. The Trump Administration is now going after the very cornerstone of U.S. climate action: the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 Endangerment Finding. This landmark legal and scientific determination is what gives the EPA its authority to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act.

On Aug. 1, 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin filed a proposed rule that would “repeal all . . . emission standards for light-duty, medium-duty, and heavy-duty vehicles and engines,” which includes cars, power plants, and other major sources of carbon emissions. This proposed rule is one of the most consequential Trump moves you may never have heard about. It is a brazen attempt to erase science, dismantle climate protections, and rewrite the law to benefit polluters.

The legal basis for limiting this dangerous pollution is unequivocal. In the landmark 2007 case Massachusetts v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court held that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act and that the EPA has a legal obligation to regulate them if it determines they endanger public health or welfare. That’s exactly what the EPA did in 2009, issuing the Endangerment Finding after an exhaustive review of peer-reviewed science and more than 380,000 public comments.

Since then, every major legal challenge to the Endangerment Finding has failed. Never before has an administration attempted to overturn it. Zeldin’s effort to do so now isn’t just unprecedented, it’s a direct attack on the rule of law, science-based policymaking, the public’s right to clean air, and efforts to protect our planet for future generations. It’s like pretending cigarettes don’t cause cancer or that seatbelts don’t save lives.

The science underpinning the 2009 Endangerment Finding is not up for debate either. The science is even clearer today, 16 years—and countless climate disasters—later. Climate pollution is driving more extreme heat, catastrophic floods (like the recent horrific flooding in Texas), intense wildfires, and dangerous air quality.

These are lived realities, right here in Michigan and across the country. Children are missing summer camp and having asthma attacks because of smoke-filled air. Seniors are dying during heat waves. Farmers are struggling with unpredictable growing seasons and water shortages, leading to rising food prices.

The EPA’s job is to follow science, not twist it for political ends. And yet, in a disturbing contradiction, the agency is now claiming—on its own Instagram page, no less—that it is “fulfilling its mission to protect human health and the environment” even as it attempts to dismantle the very basis for regulating climate pollution.

Under the banner of its newly coined slogan, “Powering the Great American Comeback,” the EPA is abandoning its core duty in favor of polluter-friendly spin. The “environment” itself isn’t mentioned in that new slogan for a reason; ironically, protecting the environment is no longer part of the EPA’s agenda.

Let’s talk about what’s really going on here. Reversing the Endangerment Finding isn’t some technical policy tweak that you can ignore. It is a deliberate, full-scale assault on the very tools we rely on to protect public health and clean up our air.

If Zeldin succeeds in dismantling this cornerstone, the EPA will lose its legal authority to limit pollution from cars, trucks, power plants, oil refineries, and industrial facilities—the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the country. The consequences would be immediate and far-reaching. More air pollution, more heat-related deaths, more respiratory illness, and more climate-driven disasters. Zeldin’s proposal serves polluter interests at the expense of the public interest.

In Michigan, we know what happens when the government turns a blind eye to science. Flint unfortunately taught us that. And according to the Environmental Law & Policy Center’s report Climate Change in the Midwest: 2025 Update (which you can find online), Michigan is already experiencing more extreme heat days, heavier rainfall events, and an increase in heat-related deaths and illnesses, as well as respiratory diseases. The report makes clear that climate change is not a distant threat—it’s a public health emergency already right here in Michigan.

The EPA should be protecting public health and the natural environment, not rewriting reality to suit polluters and their allies in Congress and the White House. This effort to erase the Endangerment Finding is a betrayal of the agency’s mission, the law, and the people it was created to serve.

Thankfully, we still have a chance to speak up. The EPA is accepting public comments on its proposal to reverse the 2009 Endangerment Finding through September 15, 2025. You can make your voice heard by submitting a comment (be sure to include Docket ID # EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194) at regulations.gov.

Tell the EPA that climate pollution is dangerous, that the science supporting the 2009 Endangerment Finding is stronger than ever, and that the agency must fulfill its legal and moral duty to protect our health, our air, and our children’s futures. Don’t let Administrator Zeldin kill and bury the important truths of the 2009 Endangerment Finding under a mountain of bureaucracy and spin.

Lauren Teichner is the founder and principal attorney at Teichner Law, a public interest environmental law firm based in Traverse City.

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