For Immediate Release: February 13th, 2026
Denver, CO — In rescinding the Endangerment Finding and repealing motor-vehicle standards for carbon pollution, EPA has chosen to disregard Supreme Court precedent, and to ignore science and logic. The agency’s sweeping rationale that it lacks authority to regulate carbon pollution is contrary to the Supreme Court's 2007 decision explicitly confirming such authority. And EPA's rationale goes far beyond motor vehicles, such that these errors overlay a profoundly anti-democratic approach: EPA is seeking not only to forgo use of the Clean Air Act to address carbon pollution during this Administration, but also to foreclose such avenues for all future Administrations. EPA thus aims to eliminate all meaningful opportunities for national limits on U.S. carbon pollution – even though the U.S. is by far the world’s largest cumulative emitter of the carbon pollution that causes climate change.
EPA additionally claims that it lacks authority to regulate carbon pollution from new motor vehicles because their emissions are too small to matter – disregarding the fact that the U.S. is currently the second-biggest emitter of carbon pollution annually and even though transportation is the U.S.’s largest source of carbon pollution. By this logic, virtually no sources anywhere in the world would warrant regulation. EPA also falsely claims that repealing the passenger-car regulations will save money. In doing so, the agency disregards abundant evidence that the regulations would have avoided some $13 billion in annual health costs, as well as $46 billion in annual fuel costs and nearly $16 billion in annual maintenance costs for drivers.
The agency’s rationales are deeply flawed, and will not stand the test of time.
For questions, please contact:
Contact: Kara Lamb, Program Manager
Phone: (970) 215-9545
Email: kara@climatedemocracyinitiative.org
