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Friday, February 13, 2026
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, announced the retraction of the endangerment finding, on which the US climate change policy is based. This attracted condemnation from the climate movement.
The 2009 endangerment finding, based on scientific research and legally upheld since its announcement, was the foundation of the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Former EPA administrator Joseph Goffman said that there has been more evidence for the finding and that Trump’s EPA management was dismantling its purpose.
On Wednesday, leaders and members of environmental organizations, including Earthjustice, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and We Act for Environmental Justice, gathered outside the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building, the EPA headquarters, to express their intent to resist the repeal
through the US federal judiciary.
 | This is corruption, plain and simple. Old-fashioned, dirty political corruption. |  |
—Sheldon Whitehouse, The Guardian | ||
At the demonstration, senator Sheldon Whitehouse called the rollback “plain and simple corruption” and accused the EPA of being at the fossil fuel industry‘s behest. Fellow congressmen Ed Markey, who compared the rescinding to cash and carry, and Paul Tonko agreed to join Whitehouse in raising the issue in Congress. Markey highlighted the re-emergence of climate change as a national issue in an interview with The Guardian.
The Trump administration defended their deregulation policies, claiming without evidence that the repeal would save $1.3 trillion. The Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign had solicited donations from Big Oil with promises to reduce environmental regulation. The Guardian connected the retraction to Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda and his executive order promoting coal, signed on Wednesday.
