Over a dozen young Americans as well as a coalition of environmental and public health groups on Wednesday filed a pair of legal challenges against President Donald Trump's administration for repealing the "endangerment finding" that enabled federal policies aimed at combating the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the long-anticipated move last week. The coalition of groups responded with a petition at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that names him and the EPA.
"The endangerment finding has been the backbone of climate policy for 17 years, protecting us from air pollution that endangers public health and welfare—including greenhouse gases that are driving climate change," explained Lawrence Hafetz, legal director at Clean Air Council, one of the groups behind the case, in a statement.
"By repealing the finding, we are sweeping the single deadliest type of pollution, climate pollution, under the rug," Hafetz continued. "Deadly floods, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes are harming our health, our communities, and our economy. This climate chaos plan is decimating the EPA's ability to act when we need protections more than ever."
Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO at the Union of Concerned Scientists, another plaintiff, argued that "EPA's repeal of the endangerment finding and safeguards to limit vehicle emissions marks a complete dereliction of the agency's mission to protect people’s health and its legal obligation under the Clean Air Act."
"This shameful and dangerous action by the Trump administration and EPA Administrator Zeldin is rooted in falsehoods, not facts, and is at complete odds with the public interest and the best available science," she noted. "Heat-trapping emissions and global average temperatures are rising—primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels—contributing to a mounting human and economic toll across the nation."
In the lead-up to the repeal, institutions worldwide concluded that 2025 was among the hottest years on record, a group of global experts declared that "current economic models systematically underestimate climate damage," and another international team of scientists warned in a review of climate tipping points that Earth is at risk of a hothouse trajectory.
Despite such findings, Trump has waged a sweeping war on the climate since he returned to office last year, thanks in part to campaign cash from the fossil fuel industry. In addition to repealing the 2009 endangerment finding—which the administration celebrated as the "single largest deregulatory action in US history"—he has declared a "national energy emergency" and ditched a long list of organizations and treaties, including the Paris Agreement.
Friends of the Earth legal director Hallie Templeton said Wednesday that "today's lawsuit makes clear that we will not idly stand by while EPA blatantly refutes its core mission to protect the environment and public health from dangerous pollution."
Templeton and David Pettit, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, stressed that with the repeal, the Trump administration is unlawfully choosing big polluters at the expense of the public and the planet."
"We're suing to stop Trump from torching our kids' future in favor of a monster handout to oil companies," said Pettit. "Nobody but Big Oil profits from Trump trashing climate science and making cars and trucks guzzle and pollute more. Consumers will pay more to fill up, and our skies and oceans will fill up with more pollution. The EPA's rollbacks are based on political poppycock, not science or law, and the courts should see it that way."
Other organizations involved in the case include the American Public Health Association, American Lung Association, Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, and more.
Also on Wednesday, 18 children and young adults from across the United States filed a separate petition at the same court challenging the EPA repeal. They are represented by Our Children's Trust and Public Justice, which have worked on various youth climate cases.
"My Catholic faith teaches me to care for all life and protect the most vulnerable, and it teaches that children are a gift," said lead petitioner Elena Venner. "I now struggle to imagine bringing a child into a world where the air is unsafe and the climate is increasingly unstable. The EPA's repeal of the endangerment finding violates my First Amendment right to practice my faith and my Fifth Amendment rights to life and liberty."
"I have asthma, and worsening pollution harms my health and makes it harder for me to breathe and live fully outdoors," Venner explained. "When the air is thick with the pollution of fossil fuel-burning cars and trucks and ever-increasing wildfire smoke, I feel it in my chest, and I am reminded that something as basic as breathing is no longer guaranteed. That is not the life today or the future my generation deserves."
