Whitehouse, Senate Democrats Investigate EPA’s “Fait Accompli” Repeal of Bedrock Climate Safeguard

“Presidential policy preferences do not give EPA carte blanche to bypass statutory mandates to engage in good faith with sound science and public input in favor of predetermined outcomes,” wrote the Senators

Washington, D.C.—U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), led 41 Senators in launching an investigation into Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin’s decision to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding, the bedrock scientific determination underpinning EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.  From the outset, EPA’s public statements and private documents about the repeal have belied any claim that the process was a transparent notice-and-comment rulemaking rather than a fait accompli.

In 2009, following the Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA, EPA determined that greenhouse gases harm public health and welfare. This determination, known as the endangerment finding, provided the legal basis for US climate policy. It is grounded in extensive peer-reviewed science and confirmed by successive National Climate Assessments and reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  Twice, EPA’s scientific finding has withstood challenge at the D.C. Circuit and, both times, the Supreme Court declined to consider appeals.  The repeal ignores more than half a century of evidence and constitutes a formal denial by EPA that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare—a position that defies decades of scientific evidence, agency precedent, Supreme Court rulings, and, perhaps most importantly, the lived experiences of millions of Americans. Repealing it sets the stage for rolling back pollution standards for vehicles, power plants, airplanes, and more.  

In a letter to Administrator Zeldin, the Senators pointed out that his public comments treated repeal as a foregone conclusion, writing, “you have described the endangerment finding as the ‘holy grail of climate change religion,’ and stated that under your leadership, EPA would be ‘driving a dagger through the heart’ of climate regulation.  In media appearances and official communications, you framed repeal as ‘the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States,’ emphasizing cost savings and ideological opposition rather than engagement with the statutory endangerment standard—or with the massive costs to human health and welfare that greenhouse gas-driven climate change imposes.”

Not only do the Trump Administration’s public comments make clear that it regarded repeal of the endangerment finding as a predetermined objective, but internal documents also reveal that EPA was moving to finalize the rescission before completing its required regulatory review.  Before the nearly 600,000 public comments were reviewed—many of which outlined the scientific and legal infirmities of repealing the endangerment finding—Trump’s EPA was already informing agency staff of its plans for repeal.  According to public reporting, “internal agency notes and presentation slides show that you ‘intend[ed] to sign off . . . on the final policy and legal justifications for repealing the so-called endangerment finding and . . . climate rules for cars and trucks…’”

To justify the proposed repeal, Administrator Zeldin initially signaled that he would rely in part on a Department of Energy (DOE) pseudoscientific report written by an illegally formed federal working group of known climate deniers with close ties to fossil fuel and polluting industry actors.  Rife with clear errors, cherry-picked data, and misrepresented facts, the report peddled the lie that human-caused climate change is not a threat.  But, as the Senators explained, a “federal judge … ruled that the DOE violated federal law when Secretary Wright hand-picked the five researchers and convened the Working Group in secret, finding that its formation and operation breached the Federal Advisory Committee Act’s requirements for transparency, public meetings, and balanced viewpoints... The collapse of the Working Group effort simply underscores that EPA attempted, and failed, to manufacture support for a conclusion the established scientific record does not and cannot sustain.”   

“When an agency signals that the outcome of a proceeding is preordained, public participation becomes performative rather than meaningful, undermining the legitimacy of the rulemaking process and violating basic principles of administrative law.  The Administrative Procedure Act prohibits agencies from engaging in rulemaking when decisionmakers have an ‘unalterably closed mind.’ … Presidential policy preferences do not give EPA carte blanche to bypass statutory mandates to engage in good faith with sound science and public input in favor of predetermined outcomes,” concluded the Senators.

In addition to Ranking Member Whitehouse, the letter was signed by Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Angus King (I-ME), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mark Warner (D-VA), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

The Senators have requested documents and information from EPA concerning the agency’s legal justification and decision-making process by February 27, 2026. 

Leader Schumer and Ranking Member Whitehouse previously led the entire Senate Democratic Caucus in demanding the Trump Administration withdraw its legally deficient and factually inaccurate proposed rollback. The Senators called the repeal of the climate and public health protection a “dereliction of duty” and a “blatant failure to protect the American people.” 

Ranking Member Whitehouse also excoriated the legal infirmities in EPA’s proposal.  The Senator described the proposed rollback as “political rhetoric masquerading as legal and scientific reasoning” that “serves no purpose beyond regulatory corporate welfare to President Trump’s fossil fuel industry donors, its only beneficiaries.”  Not only did EPA’s proposed rollback “rel[y] on untenable interpretations of the Clean Air Act and applicable precedent to justify its conclusions,” but it ignored the “near-absolute scientific consensus that climate change poses dire threats to humanity’s collective future and must be addressed.”

None of the issues raised in these comments were meaningfully addressed in EPA’s final ruling.

Full text of the letter is available HERE.