On February 12, 2026, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which found that six greenhouse gases (GHGs) were a danger to public health and welfare due to their effect on climate change and formed the basis of GHG emissions regulation in the United States. The final rule was published in the Federal Register on February 18, 2026, and becomes effective April 20, 2026. This rescission of the 2009 Endangerment Finding effectively ends EPA’s regulation of GHG emissions from U.S. motor vehicles, and begins a path of deregulation that will likely extend to other sectors with GHG emissions, including power plants, oil and gas operations, and aircraft.

This comes as the latest move by the Trump Administration in its deregulatory agenda. A move, that was highly anticipated since the EPA announced a proposal to rescind the Obama-era Endangerment Finding on July 29, 2025, and again in September 2025 when the EPA announced its regulatory agenda for 2026. In the July proposal to repeal the Endangerment Finding, the EPA reasoned that a lot changed since 2009, “including new scientific and technological developments that warrant review.”

Who is Affected

The repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding also repeals all GHG emission standards for light-duty, medium-duty, and heavy-duty vehicles and engines manufactured or imported into the U.S. for model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond. It rescinds regulations that are directly tied to EPA’s motor vehicle GHG standards, including testing, compliance, manufacturer reporting and certification obligations, credit programs, averaging, banking, and trading provisions specific to GHG emissions. It does not rescind vehicle fuel-economy (CAFE) standards administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or mobile source air toxics standards.

The final rule declines to provide insight as to whether—or how—other industries may be affected by the repeal of the Endangerment Finding, however, EPA’s proposed rule from August 2025 indicated that EPA “sought to expand the same analytical framework to regulatory provisions governing existing vehicles, stationary sources, aircraft, and oil and gas operations.” Stakeholders in these industry sectors subject to Clean Air Act (CAA) regulations addressing climate change should keep an eye out for similar rulemakings affecting or repealing the regulation of their GHG emissions.

What to Expect Moving Forward

These regulatory rollbacks will cause uncertainty in many industries, as states will likely look to fill the regulatory gap left by the EPA. Challenges to the recission, which have already begun, along with more aggressive state legislation and litigation on GHG emissions in the absence of an EPA Endangerment Finding, may also expose companies to additional legal risks and uncertainty.

The Endangerment Finding was made following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, which found that the GHGs met the definition of pollutants under the CAA. From which the EPA concluded it had statutory authority to regulate GHG emissions from new motor vehicles under Section 202(a). The D.C. Circuit upheld the Endangerment Finding in 2012, and the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.

In announcing the repeal of the Endangerment Finding, the EPA stated that it “considered and reevaluated the foundation of the 2009 Endangerment Finding and the text of the Clean Air Act (CAA) in light of subsequent legal developments and court decisions,” referring, in part, to the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) decision which eliminated Chevron deference for federal administrative agencies interpreting ambiguous statutory provisions. EPA has now concluded that under these new decisions, Section 202(a) of the CAA does not provide statutory authority for EPA to set emission standards addressing global climate change, and therefore, there is no legal basis for the Endangerment Finding and resulting regulations. Section 202(a)(1) of the CAA requires EPA to regulate “the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines” which may cause or contribute to the endangerment of public health or welfare.

In addition to the legal challenges over the EPA’s ability to roll back these regulations in light of Massachusetts. v. EPA, this new final rule and similar forthcoming rules that the EPA has hinted at will likely spawn new challenges regarding federal preemption. Over the last few years, fossil fuel companies and the Trump administration have consistently argued that state climate torts and climate superfund laws are attempts to regulate GHG emissions and are federally preempted. This new rule will provide new ammunition for states and environmental groups to refute these claims as federal regulation of GHGs continues to diminish. However, the EPA has stated that this final rule does not allow states to step in and regulate without a waiver to do so from the EPA, as state regulations would still be preempted under CAA section 209(a). Similarly, it is EPA’s position that under Am. Elec. Power Co. v. Connecticut, the CAA “continues to preempt federal-common law claims for vehicle and engine emissions” because Congress “delegated to EPA the decision whether and how to regulate such emissions.” The EPA also believes that the CAA “continues to preempt state common-law claims and statutes that seek to regulate out-of-state emissions.”

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