News at the top: After a wave of firings earlier this year, the National Weather Service is hiring again.
The National Weather Service plans to hire hundreds of new employees, months after it lost more than 500 people to the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to reshape the federal work force…
…between the cuts and other vacancies that existed at the start of the year, up to 770 empty positions at forecast offices and other departments could be filled….A statement from Representatives Mike Flood, a Republican from Nebraska, and Eric Sorensen, an Illinois Democrat, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Weather Service’s parent agency, would be hiring for 450 “critical positions.”
That would restore nearly all the positions lost to cuts earlier this year.
In 2025, the Trump administration appears on a mission to destroy any semblance of credibility the United States has when it comes to taking action against climate change. Amongst other things, the administration has
Cancelled close to 800 environmental justice grants issued by the Biden administration to support local climate adaptation efforts,
For the first time in close to thirty years, chose not to publish a UN-mandated annual report documenting US emissions,
Fired hundreds of scientists working on the National Climate Assessment, the federal government’s report on how climate change is impacting the US. This report (most recently released in 2023) is used by state and local governments to develop climate mitigation strategies for natural disasters. Past versions have been wiped from the federal website, but are still available elsewhere online.
Prepared to eliminate the ENERGY STAR program. This Bush I-era initiative is a national symbol of energy efficiency (90% of American consumers recognize the distinctive blue label) that has helped the typical American family save hundreds of dollars a year on energy costs and reduced US emissions by ~5%.
Terminated EPA’s Office of Research and Development, whose research has been important for implementing tougher federal regulations.
Begun the process of turning back Biden-era regulations designed to limit power plant pollution, including of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and chemicals like arsenic, lead and mercury. The AP reached out to 30 experts in the field about the science behind this proposal and got nineteen responses, all of whom said “the proposal was scientifically wrong.”
Source: AP As one scientist put it,
The world is round, the sun rises in the east, coal- and gas-fired power plants contribute significantly to climate change, and climate change increases the risk of heat waves, catastrophic storms and many other health threats. These are indisputable facts.
Stacked new levels of regulatory review for wind and solar projects to end what the Department of Interior termed as “special treatment for unreliable energy sources, such as wind.”
Exempted over a dozen coal-burning facilities from environmental rules implemented to manage the release of potentially toxic air pollutants. These facilities were given this pass after officials sent emails to EPA requesting they be excused from following these rules.
Delayed implementing a Biden-era rule which seeks to limit methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.
Look to end the Solar for All program, a Biden-era initiative originally slated to distribute $7bn in grants across the country to help develop clean energy projects in low-income communities.
Will stop updating a webpage documenting emissions factors which companies use to calculate their own impact and that of their supply chains.
And, not to be forgotten or overlooked, the One Big Beautiful Bill gutted most of the carrots (e.g., tax credits and subsidies) championed by the Biden administration to incentivize a revolution in clean energy. Columbia Business School has a useful summary chart laying out the changes and the near-term impact on the US.
The impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on an assortment of clean tech projects, summarized.
As you would expect, this has been particularly damaging to the clean energy sector of the US economy.
The administration’s efforts to halt America’s climate ambitions have been spearheaded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the leadership of director Lee Zeldin. At the end of June, a group of EPA employees signed a petition opposing the Trump administration’s policies, calling on Zeldin to end the politicization of EPA and recommit the agency toward its mission of protecting the environment and human health.1 A few days later, EPA suspended a group of nearly 150 EPA employees who had signing this letter.
All of these efforts to turn back the clock on America’s fight against climate change came to a head at the end of July when Zeldin went to a dealership in Indiana to announce what he called “the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States”: the recision of the endangerment finding.
History of the endangerment finding
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v EPA that certain GHGs , including carbon dioxide, are pollutants and EPA is required to regulate them as a threat to public health and welfare.
Two years later, using a combination of scientific evidence and public comments, the Obama administration determined climate change (+ emissions) are a hazard to human health. This led the administration to enact the endangerment finding, which represents the legal and scientific basis underpinning the US’ regulation of emissions.
The endangerment finding was initially invoked to regulate vehicle tailpipe emissions under the Clean Air Act, before expanding to other sectors including air travel, the oil and gas sector and public utilities (such as the Clean Power Plan requiring power plants to cut emissions).
The decision to revoke the endangerment finding is not a surprise. One of Trump’s first executive orders issued on January 20 asked EPA to look into the “legality and continuing applicability” of the endangerment finding. As such, it was only a matter of time before the formal announcement.
What is EPA saying?
In revoking the endangerment finding, EPA is arguing the agency itself did not have the authority to issue the endangerment finding because Congress never authorized EPA to regulate GHGs. By claiming emissions are a GHG public health problem during the Obama era, EPA exceeded its statutory authority. EPA’s argument rests on the following:
Air pollution is local, and EPA doesn’t have the authority to regulate local climate change.
EPA claims that climate regulations are leading to higher prices and limiting customer choice and says regulations should not simply focus on the cost of human health. But as Patrick Parenteau, a Vermont Law School professor, notes, this argument was rejected by a US district court in 2012 and a 2001 SCOTUS decision found EPA cannot consider cost implications when setting air quality standards.
EPA shouldn’t set standards on GHG because the US is an insignificant contributor to global climate change. While America’s emissions have fallen from their peak, and are currently well below China’s, cumulatively speaking the US has produced the most emissions.
Butchering the science
To support its argument EPA cited a reported commissioned by the Department of Energy, also released at the end of July. The DoE report concluded that (my emphasis added)
CO2-induced warming appears to be less damaging economically than commonly believed, and that aggressive mitigation strategies may be misdirected Additionally, the report finds that U.S. policy actions are expected to have undetectably small direct impacts on the global climate and any effects will emerge only with long delays.
In other words, the scientific consensus that climate change is an existential threat is over-exaggerated and this fact should be considered during the regulation process.
But as Zeke Hausfather, one of the scientists whose research is cited in the DoE’s report as evidence that climate change is not serious, noted, the citations cherrypick “figures and parts of studies to support a preconceived narrative that minimizes the risk of climate change” and “the actual content of my paper went counter to the narrative they were trying to present, and thus was ignored.”
This Department of Energy report was headlined by five scientists, all considered climate skeptics, which tells you a bit about the report’s bias from the outset. This group might not have explicitly said “climate change isn’t real,” but they downplayed the impact. As Hausfather explained, the DoE amplified “one-sided views by a small number of contrarian researchers” while, at the same time, ignored the science-based, congressionally-mandated, National Climate Assessment.
The response
Interestingly, some of the voices you might support eliminating the endangerment finding were actually less effusive in their response. Both the automotive and oil & gas sectors support customer choice, but recognize emissions are a problem that can’t be tossed under the rug.
While the American Petroleum Institute applauded the move, the oil and gas lobbyist did say it was looking “forward to working with the administration on policies that help reduce emissions.” Ford, the car company, noted that the US, “needs a single, stable standard to foster business planning” which “should align with science and customer choice, reduce carbon emissions by getting more stringent over time, and grow American manufacturing.”
Indeed, on Monday August 11, Ford announced that it was investing $2bn into a Kentucky-based plant in an effort produce more affordable EVs.
What comes next?
As is required for rule changes like this, EPA is accepting public comments for 45-days (through September 15). The agency will then have to reply to the most relevant comments before issuing a final rule (likely sometime in early 2026). This will be followed almost immediately by a wave of lawsuits directed at EPA, resulting in a lengthly legal process. One Harvard Law professor estimated that the Appeals Court would not make a decision until 2027 and that regardless of the decision, the legality of EPA’s decision will ultimately end up in front of the Supreme Court.
If the Supreme Court were to agree with the administration’s most extreme argument, that EPA is not entitled to regulate GHG emissions at all, the next president would not be able to reverse the ruling. A less harsh ruling, such that EPA has discretion to use a different method to determine endangerment beyond just the science, could be reversed by a future administration.
Possible silver lining…state and local litigation
State and local jurisdictions have filed numerous lawsuits against the major oil companies, but these have largely failed on the grounds that federal law reigns supreme. In 2011, SCOTUS ruled in American Electric Power Co. v Connecticut that because EPA was regulating emissions under the federal Clean Air Act, states couldn’t separately sue polluters using a nuisance law. A nuisance law is a legal claim that someone’s (or something’s) actions conflict with public rights — like the right to a healthy environment. But if the endangerment finding goes poof, nuisance lawsuits may have a clear runway. Because they are conscious of this risk of a flood of local legal action, the energy sector has actually encouraged the Trump Administration to keep the endangerment finding on the books.
How this gets resolved
Right now, there is no federal law on the books explicitly mandating emission reductions. If Congress were to enact legislation to make permanent a long-term plan to reduce emissions (such as by following the internationally recognized science and the Paris Climate Accord), that would codify climate change action and remove the risk of the executive branch unilaterally revoking all climate actions, and the possibility of the courts agreeing with the president.
Absent this exceedingly unlikely act of bipartisan legislative work, the federal government will effectively be abdicating any responsibility and the burden of addressing climate change will fall to the states and individuals. .
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This EPA decision comes at a particularly interesting time, on the heels of a ruling by the International Court of Justice that climate change is existential and nation-states are legally obligated to reduce emission. We will take a quick look at that decision in a coming post.
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Cheers!
A similar letter was sent by employees at the National Institutes of Health to RFK Jr. over fears the Trump administration’s policies were undermining public health.