The danger is personal: How the Trump administration is sabotaging EPA’s ability to protect us from climate change
The Endangerment Finding is a foundational part of EPA’s ability to protect us from the health effects of climate change, and thanks to the new Trump administration, it’s now directly under threat.
Revoking the Endangerment Finding would put so much at risk: our families’ physical and mental health, humans’ ability to thrive on this planet, and the stability of our societies.
Here’s what you need to know about this vital protection.
What is the Endangerment Finding?
The Endangerment Finding was issued by EPA in 2009 in response to a Supreme Court decision determining that greenhouse gases—the climate pollution emitted when fossil fuels are burned for energy—should be considered a form of pollution governed by the Clean Air Act, our nation’s bedrock clean air legislation.
Based on extensive scientific evidence, EPA found that climate pollution does indeed endanger the public health and welfare of current and future generations and issued the Endangerment Finding in acknowledgment of its clear responsibility to protect people in the U.S. from the health impacts of climate change.
How is the Endangerment Finding being threatened?
On January 20, 2025, the Trump administration issued dozens of executive orders attacking the protections meant to keep our families and communities safe from unhealthy air and climate pollution. One of these executive orders directed new EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to review the “legality and continuing applicability” of the Endangerment Finding.
In March 2025, Zeldin announced that he intends to try and get rid of this law and undermine one of the nation’s most successful environmental protections. This is shameful, cynical, and dangerous. There is overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gases are driving global warming and directly threatening human health, and courts have rejected legal challenges to the Endangerment Finding multiple times. But that hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from launching a sweeping attack on EPA’s ability to protect us from climate change and other environmental harms.
What is at stake?
Undermining or revoking the Endangerment Finding threatens EPA’s ability to protect us from climate pollution at all, and the health of our families, communities, and future generations is at stake.
Across the United States and around the world, families and communities are feeling the devastating impacts of global warming. As the Earth’s temperatures rise, heat waves become more frequent and intense, as do droughts. Warmer air holds more moisture—and more heat and moisture in the air causes heavier rainfall and more powerful storms. In 2024 alone, the U.S. experienced 27 weather and climate disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damages.
The danger we face is personal. Hotter days harm our physical and mental health, contributing to increased illnesses and medical emergencies. Undermining the Endangerment Finding would mean more parents navigating the trauma of wildfires and wondering if smoky air is safe for children to breathe. It would mean more days that are too hot for children to play safely on playgrounds, more families displaced by flooding, and more parents anxiously checking children’s little limbs for ticks as global warming increases the prevalence of Lyme disease and other vector-borne illnesses. It would mean more school days disrupted by extreme weather, more scrambling to find childcare. And it would mean exacerbating existing disparities that force communities of color and those experiencing poverty to carry a far heavier burden of virtually every climate impact.
Climate change also costs families and communities a fortune as healthcare costs rise and lives, homes, jobs, and farms are lost or damaged in floods, droughts, and increasingly dangerous weather. Meanwhile, fossil fuel industry billionaires continue to rake in record profits while our children, families, and communities pay the price.
How does the Endangerment Finding protect us?
The Endangerment Finding provides the legal foundation for EPA regulations that protect people in the U.S. from some of the largest sources of climate pollution, including power plants, transportation, and oil and gas operations. If the Endangerment Finding is threatened, many other protections are threatened too:
- Power plants: Coal- and gas-fired power plants are responsible for about 25% of climate pollution in the U.S. In 2024, EPA finalized a suite of rules to address greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution from fossil fuel power plants. These protections would avoid more than 1.3 billion tons of carbon pollution overall through 2047—the equivalent of preventing an entire year of emissions from the U.S. power sector. Learn more about carbon pollution here.
- Transportation: The transportation sector is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for the largest portion (28%) of total climate pollution in the U.S. in 2022. In 2024, EPA finalized new Clean Cars standards to reduce harmful pollution from new passenger cars, light trucks, and vans, which EPA projects will reduce 7.2 billion metric tons of climate-heating carbon dioxide over the life of the program. EPA also finalized the strongest-ever greenhouse gas standards for heavy-duty trucks in 2024. These “Clean Trucks” protections are expected to prevent 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas pollution. Learn more about tailpipe pollution here.
- Oil and gas operations: Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with significantly more warming power than carbon dioxide. About 30% of today’s global warming is driven by methane emissions from human actions, including methane leaks from oil and gas operations. In 2023, EPA finalized a rule that will sharply reduce methane and other dangerous pollutants from the oil and gas industry. Learn more about methane here.
Revoking the Endangerment Finding would sabotage a comprehensive, multi-sector approach that protects people in the U.S. from the largest sources of climate and air pollution, putting the well-being of both current and future generations at risk. Cleaner solutions are also the most affordable solutions. Attacking the legal basis for keeping communities healthy and safe makes no sense.
What can I do to protect the Endangerment Finding so that it can continue to protect me?
It is EPA’s legal responsibility to protect us from dangerous greenhouse gas pollution. The science unequivocally supports what so many people in the U.S. are already experiencing in their everyday lives—climate pollution is causing harm in communities across the country. Lowering climate pollution, as the Endangerment Finding requires, leads to cleaner air, better health, more jobs, and safer communities.
Let your lawmakers know that you care about a safe, stable climate for those alive today and for future generations—and tell them to defend the Endangerment Finding.
Tell Administrator Zeldin: Cutting Climate Pollution Is Essential for Our Families’ Health
Key Resources
- Article: Zeldin’s Shameful EPA Recommendation Threatens Kids’ Safety
- Article: Imperiling Children’s Health: The Trump Administration’s Attacks on the Endangerment Finding
- Video: Endangerment Finding Press Conference
- Video: Tell EPA to Keep Cutting Climate Pollution
- Press statement: President Trump’s Attack on the “Endangerment Finding” Threatens EPA’s Ability to Protect Families from Global Warming
- Video: EPA’s Zeldin Keeps Breaking Promises
Released: March 2025