D.C. Circuit Endangerment Finding Litigation: The Stall Is On
15th August 2026
The Endangerment Finding (EF) is the completely absurd piece of regulatory overreach by which the Obama EPA in December 2009 purported to determine that the trace atmospheric gas carbon dioxide was a “danger to human health and welfare.” That action may have been absurd, but it was by no means benign. CO2 is a principal product of all combustion of fossil fuels. Following on the EF, EPA and other government agencies in the Obama and then Biden Administrations set out to use the EF as the basis to transform our entire energy economy — suppressing drilling, blocking pipelines, forcing closure of power plants, outlawing combustion cars and gas heat and stoves, and much, much more.
In Trump’s first term, EPA never chose to take on the EF; but in Trump’s second term the agency got right to work on the job of rescission, and issued the final rule rescinding the first part of the EF (as to motor vehicle emissions) on February 13, 2026. By February 18, progressive NGOs were already in court (D.C. Circuit) seeking to block the rescission.