U.S. health and environmental advocates are suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the Trump administration’s decision to reverse a landmark 2009 climate change ruling known as a “breakthrough finding.”
This discovery proves that greenhouse gases are a risk to public health and environmental safety, given that they are the main cause of climate change. This formed the legal basis for many regulatory policies aimed at curbing climate change.
When US President Donald Trump, who called climate change a “hoax” and a “fraud,” rescinded the declaration in February, the EPA endorsed the move, calling it “the largest deregulatory move in U.S. history.”
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, alleges that the Trump administration’s decisions endanger the health and well-being of the American people.
Peter Zarzal, vice president of clean air strategy at the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement: “Reversing the endangered status designation would put us all at risk. People around the world would face more pollution, higher costs, and thousands of avoidable deaths.”
President Trump’s reversal of the endangered status certification is the latest in a series of steps he has taken to prioritize deregulation, increase fossil fuel production and reverse climate change regulations.
However, Trump is not the first US president to enact policies that harm the environment. By the time he arrived at the White House, we saw how decades of U.S. policy had negatively impacted the environment.
What is “discovery of a critical situation”?
This endangered status designation was established during the era of Democratic President Barack Obama. It says carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare.
Michael Craft, professor emeritus of political science and public and environmental affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, told Al Jazeera that the ruling allows the EPA under President Obama to move forward with policies aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
Under the endangered certification, power plants were required to meet federal limits on carbon emissions or risk closure. This has forced oil and gas companies to invest more in detecting and repairing methane leaks, suppressing flaring, and improving tailpipe and fuel efficiency standards to help auto companies build more efficient, lower-emission vehicles.
What does revocation mean?
Brett Heinz, a policy researcher based in Washington, D.C., told Al Jazeera, “The recent changes[by the Trump administration]allow for more pollution, which effectively harms everyone on the planet.”
“People living near fossil fuel facilities will be most directly affected, as they will be exposed to new air and water pollution caused by deregulatory policies,” Heinz added.
Without an endangered certification, the Environmental Protection Agency would lose an important legal basis to limit greenhouse gas emissions, making it easier for coal-fired power plants, refineries, and petrochemical complexes to operate older, dirty equipment for longer periods of time, expand without modern pollution controls, and emit more soot, smog-forming gases, and toxic chemicals into nearby communities.
Heinz explained that increasing greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels in power plants, cars and industry, as well as continued deforestation, also amplify the dangers posed by natural disasters. This is because increasing global warming will worsen heat waves, storms, floods and droughts and cause sea levels to rise, all of which will turn existing natural disasters into more frequent and destructive ones.
“The only people who will benefit from these decisions will be the executives and shareholders of a handful of wealthy fossil fuel companies, who will reap healthy profits as the world gets sick. Many of these fossil fuel elites funded President Trump’s campaign and are now profiting from this investment,” Heinz said.
Experts say President Trump’s decision to completely scrap environmental policies is unlike any previous president.
“This wave of new pro-pollution policies from the White House is completely unprecedented. Successive administrations have amended environmental rules, but the second Trump administration is essentially eliminating them entirely. So far, this is the most radically anti-environmental president in American history,” Heinz said.
How have past U.S. presidents endangered the environment?
But Trump is by no means the first U.S. president to enact policies that harm the environment.
Under Republican Theodore Roosevelt, who served as president from 1901 to 1909, Congress passed the Newlands Act of 1902, treating land and rivers primarily as raw materials for large infrastructure projects rather than as ecosystems that needed protection.
This was further promoted by Democrat Harry Truman, who served as president from 1945 to 1953, and promoted rapid postwar industrial and suburban expansion by commissioning interstate highway construction and promoting automobile-oriented development.
Under Republican Dwight Eisenhower, who served as president from 1953 to 1961, the interstate highway system boomed and the private automobile became a development priority in the United States.
Republican Richard Nixon, who served as president from 1969 to 1974, signed major environmental legislation but also supported massive expansion of fossil fuels. Under the Nixon administration, a highly toxic herbicide known as Agent Orange was used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.
Republican Ronald Reagan, who served as president from 1981 to 1989, made appointments to the EPA and the Interior Department and pushed for expanded oil, gas, coal and timber extraction on public lands.
To facilitate this, the government backed deregulation and industry interests, rolled back existing environmental policies, cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act enforcement, relaxed rules on toxic emissions and pesticides, and further opened up federal lands, including wilderness and wildlife habitat, to oil, gas, mining, and logging activities.
Republican George W. Bush, who served as president from 2001 to 2009, actively undermined global climate negotiations by refusing to ratify the United Nations-backed 1997 Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions, formally withdrawing U.S. support for Kyoto in 2001, appointing senior officials who questioned climate science, and promoting voluntary, industry-friendly approaches rather than binding emissions cuts.
Obama, who served as president from 2009 to 2017, introduced some landmark climate regulations, but also oversaw a fracking boom, making the United States the world’s largest oil and gas producer and locking in fossil infrastructure for the long term.
Hydraulic fracturing, or hydraulic fracturing, involves injecting water, sand, and chemicals into shale rock, releasing oil and gas. This process is believed to cause methane leakage, groundwater contamination, heavy water use, and increased local air pollution.
Democrat Joe Biden, who served as president from 2021 to 2024, has approved large-scale fossil projects such as the Willow Project in Alaska. This included oil development on federal lands in the National Petroleum Reserve, which was planned to pump hundreds of millions of barrels of crude oil over several decades.
According to figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the project will emit between 239 million and 280 million tons of greenhouse gases over its lifetime. The project was approved and underway in 2023 and was expected to last 30 years.
Biden also supported growth in LNG exports by approving new and expanded export terminals and long-term export permits, allowing companies to honor decades-old contracts to ship U.S. gas to Europe and Asia.
Is this a partisan issue?
no.
“The failure of U.S. policymakers to take more aggressive action to combat global warming is not a question of whether they are Democrats or Republicans,” Steinberg said.
“Neoliberalism, a form of corporate freedom, is at the heart of the problem. Bipartisan agreement on the need for economic growth has led to a general trend toward weakening environmental regulation,” he added.
Ted Steinberg, a history professor at US-based Case Western Reserve University, told Al Jazeera that the US created an extensive national park system in the 19th century and once led the world in conservation.
“It was then. American corporate interests, especially the fossil fuel industry, combined with a one-party political system in which both Republicans and Democrats are indentured to the business class, caused the United States to drag on global warming,” Steinberg said.
What is the history of Washington’s impact on the environment?
According to experts, the United States has historically been the largest contributor to global warming.
Chad Montrey, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, told Al Jazeera: “As with most countries, environmental policy in the United States began in the mid-19th century and was a response to problems caused by industrialization and urbanization that occurred from there at the local, state, and national levels.”
“Many of their policies were limited and inadequate, especially in an era when corporations could wield influence, but in some cases they were ahead of what other countries were doing,” added Montry, an environmental historian.
There was a time when environmental policy was bipartisan. In fact, the EPA was created in 1970 by Republican President Richard Nixon.
“It wasn’t until the rise of pro-business politics in the 1980s that Republicans like President Reagan took a tough stance on environmental protection,” Heinz said.
“Democrats continue to believe to some degree in environmental protection and climate-friendly policies, while Republicans have become one of the few parties in the world to completely deny the scientific facts about climate change.”
How will this affect other parts of the world?
“U.S. policy often sets the standard for policy in other parts of the world, both because of its cultural influence and the control it has over global institutions like the International Monetary Fund,” Heinz said.
“The United States is now aggressively pushing dirty fossil fuels onto the rest of the world and even threatening some allies who are trying to negotiate new environmental agreements.”
Heinz explained that this pressure, combined with rising energy prices, appears to have convinced Europe to back away from some of its climate goals. Household electricity prices rose by around 20% across the European Union from 2021 to 2022, according to Eurostat data.
Heinz said that if the recent United Nations climate change conference and COP negotiations are any indication, global climate ambition now appears to be on the decline.
The most recent conference, held in Brazil in November 2025, ended with a draft proposal that contained no roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels and did not even mention the term “fossil fuels” at all. This drew condemnation from several countries attending the conference.
“As long as Donald Trump remains in office, the hopes of future generations will depend on the nations of the world coming together and acting responsibly to maintain a healthy environment at a time when America is truly out of whack.”
