EDF, allies file notice of intent to sue EPA in matter related to the Endangerment Finding

On Friday, the Environmental Defense Fund joined dozens of state and local governments, other public health and environmental organizations, the Zero Emission Transportation Association, and a labor organization to send a notice of intent to sue to the Environmental Protection Agency in a matter related to EPA’s repeal of the Endangerment Finding – the agency’s science-based determination that climate pollution harms public health and welfare. 

Friday’s notice follows EPA’s failure to respond to administrative reconsideration petitions that EDF and its partners filed with the agency in April. The reconsideration petitions identify new and serious flaws in EPA’s final rule rescinding the Endangerment Finding.  

Legal challenges to the Endangerment Finding rescission  

In February, the Trump EPA finalized its repeal of the Endangerment Finding along with all greenhouse gas emissions standards EPA has ever adopted for motor vehicles.   

Over the next 30 years, that deeply damaging action will lead to 18 billion tons of additional climate pollution and $500 billion in health harms, and it will force Americans already faced with extremely high gas prices to spend $1.4 trillion more on fuel. 

EDF and 16 other public health and environmental organizations (including the American Public Health Association and American Lung Association) immediately challenged that action in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Since that time, a broad coalition of states and local governments, the Zero Emission Transportation Association, labor interests and others have also filed legal challenges.   

The administrative reconsideration petitions  

In April, EDF and other health and environmental groups filed a petition for administrative reconsideration of the repeal of the Endangerment Finding with EPA. Other petitioners in the case — including states, business and labor interests — have filed similar administrative petitions with EPA.  

Our petition and accompanying technical appendix detail fundamental defects in EPA’s final rule to rescind the Endangerment Finding — most notably substantial changes from the proposed repeal that were never opened for public comment, and seriously flawed new modeling that EPA used to justify its claim that cutting climate pollution from cars and trucks would be “futile.” The petition includes new EDF analysis and modeling that document how EPA systematically downplayed climate harms, relied on irrelevant comparisons, discarded well-established health benefits from reducing soot and smog, and produced an analytically skewed assessment that does not support its own conclusions. 

EPA’s hasty and flawed analysis for the Endangerment Finding repeal was newly cobbled together for the final rule. In its proposal, EPA had instead relied on a report by the “Climate Working Group” which was established in secret by the Trump administration to attack the Endangerment Finding. However, a federal court held that the “Climate Working Group” violated federal law -- a decision that EDF and Union of Concerned Scientists secured. The decision resulted in the Trump administration disbanding the group and the court compelling the administration to release more than 100,000 pages of records (which are now posted online and publicly accessible).  

EPA’s decision to rely on new modeling and analysis in its final rule deprived the public of an opportunity to comment on the new and seriously flawed material EPA claims supports its decision. This legal failure is part of a broader pattern where the Trump administration has introduced new information or arguments in final rules that have not been subject to legally required public scrutiny. 

Today’s notice of intent to sue EPA  

EPA has a legal duty to respond to administrative petitions that raise clear and significant defects with a final rule. Instead of doing so, the agency has simply declined to act.  

Friday’s notice of intent to sue informs EPA that EDF and allied groups intend to sue after 180 days (the notice period required by the Clean Air Act) unless EPA has taken action on the petitions. This action aims to ensure that the new and seriously flawed information in EPA’s final rule to repeal the Endangerment Finding is subject to both public and judicial scrutiny.