From: The Honest Broker

By: Roger Pielke Jr.

Date: February 14, 2026

Making Sense of the EPA Endangerment Finding Rule

A few days ago the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a new rule that rescinded the 2009 Endangerment Finding that found that six greenhouse gases emitted from autos posed risks to health and welfare. Also eliminated by the EPA decision are a set of regulations governing emissions from light vehicles and trucks that followed directly from the Endangerment Finding.

You can read background leading up to the ruling — here, here, and here. I’ve spent the past few days reading the rule and associated documents, and have prepared an initial set of questions and answers on arguments in the rule that stood out to me as important.

Online discussion of the rule that I’ve seen suggests hyperbolically that it is either the end of all U.S. climate policy or alternatively the greatest regulatory rollback in U.S. history. I don’t align with either view. While the final rule is much stronger than I anticipated, based on EPA’s early arguments, I still think that it has a good chance of being struck down, but it might be close.

What the rule does offer is an opportunity for Congress — to at least clarify the language of Clean Air Act, but perhaps more significantly to open up a debate over what a common-sense, bipartisan approach to greenhouse gas policy might look like in legislation.

With that, let’s go to the FAQs . . .

What is the “endangerment finding” debate about anyway?

The entire debate over the Endangerment Finding is based on interpretations of the meaning of a 112-word paragraph in the Clean Air Act., shown in full below. (continue reading)

Making Sense of the EPA Endangerment Finding Rule