On February 13 this year, the federal EPA rescinded one of its regulatory actions known as the “Endangerment Finding.” (EF).

The EF, originally adopted in 2009 early in the Obama administration, was likely the single most costly and destructive regulatory action ever to spring forth from the administrative state. The EF became the fundamental underpinning for all the subsequent regulations that sought to restrict and ultimately ban use of fossil fuels in the economy — everything from regulations seeking to force closure of power plants, to efforts to mandate only electric cars, to restrictions on drilling and pipelines, and much, much more. The Trump administration is now systematically dismantling all those regulatory wrecking balls.

But the opposition has not been idle. Once the rescission became final, the Climate Blob immediately sprang into action with a barrage of lawfare. The first litigation challenging rescission of the EF was filed in the D.C. Circuit on February 18.

Have you heard of the “Endangerment Finding” (EF)? You have if you have been reading this blog for any period of time.

The 2009 EF is likely the most consequential, expensive and destructive regulatory action ever put in place by the federal bureaucracy. In that action, EPA claimed to find that carbon dioxide and several other so-called “greenhouse gases” constitute a “danger” to human health and welfare. Using the EF as the predicate, the administrative state under the Obama and Biden presidencies implemented dozens of major regulations intended to transform the entire energy sector of the U.S. economy. Obama/Biden regulations based on the EF sought, for example, to force the closure of all fossil-fuel based power plants; to end the production of internal-combustion-based cars in favor of electric cars; to restrict drilling for oil and for natural gas; to halt construction of pipelines; and many, many other such things.

The total cost was heading well into the trillions when President Trump returned to office in 2025. One of Trump’s first day Executive Orders in his second term directed all agencies to “review” and then begin to “suspend, revise, or rescind” all agency actions “identified as unduly burdensome” to U.S. energy production. EPA promptly began a lengthy regulatory process to rescind the EF. The final rule doing away with the EF became final on February 13, 2026. I had a post reporting on the rescission on February 15.

If it withstands court challenges, the rescission of the EF is a death blow against the entire and vast climate grift industry. Obviously the rescission was going to unleash a tsunami of litigation.

It’s been a long time coming. But today the EPA, through its Administrator Lee Zeldin, finally began the formal process of rescinding the so-called “Endangerment Finding” (EF).

The EF is the 2009 regulatory action by which the Obama-era EPA purported to determine that CO2 and other greenhouse gases constitute a “danger to human health and welfare.”

That Finding then formed the basis for all subsequent federal greenhouse gas regulations, including efforts of Obama and Biden regulators to force the closure of all power plants running on coal and natural gas, and to mandate increased vehicle mileage to levels that no internal combustion engine could meet.

EPA initiated the rescission process today by means of an announcement in a speech by Zeldin, who appeared at an event in Indianapolis, and also through this document, titled “Reconsideration of 2009 Endangerment Finding and Greenhouse Gas Vehicle Standards.”