by WorldTribune Staff, February 10, 2026 Real World News
President Donald Trump this week will repeal the Obama-era finding on greenhouse gases which gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) legal authority to limit emissions from power plants and vehicles.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the so-called “endangerment finding” of 2009 that labeled six greenhouse gases as a threat to public health and welfare will be overturned by Trump.
In a post to X, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Trump will repeal the Obama-era greenhouse gas finding.
“This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said.
An EPA spokesperson said the finding was used by the Obama and Biden Administrations to “justify trillions of dollars of greenhouse gas regulations covering new vehicles and engines.”
The Journal cited Trump Administration officials as saying the move removes the regulatory requirements to measure, report, certify and comply with federal greenhouse-gas emission standards for motor vehicles, and repeals associated compliance programs, credit provisions and reporting obligations for industries.
“It wouldn’t apply to rules governing emissions from power plants and other stationary sources such as oil-and-gas facilities, the officials said. But repealing the finding could open up the door to rolling back regulations that affect those facilities,” the report said.
On Inauguration Day last year, Trump signed an executive order directing the EPA to submit an assessment on whether the endangerment finding—which the Obama and Biden Administrations used to set greenhouse gas emission limits on vehicles, power plants and large industrial facilities—should be kept in place. The EPA announced a proposal to rescind the finding last July.
The Trump Administration said the rollback would equate to more than $1 trillion in regulation cuts and result in an average per-vehicle cost savings of more than $2,400.
Democrat-run states who oppose the Trump Administration’s move could enact their own legislation for regulating emissions. California has previously asserted that if greenhouse gas emissions don’t fall under the federal purview, then it doesn’t need approval from EPA to regulate tailpipe emissions.
The move is one of several the Trump Administration said it plans to make to help cut electricity costs. Public polling shows that voters view the high cost of living—including electricity prices—as a primary concern heading into this year’s midterm elections.
“More energy drives human flourishing,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said. “Energy abundance is the thing that we have to focus on, not regulating certain forms of energy out.”
Trump is set to hold an event Wednesday at the White House with Zeldin and Energy Secretary Chris Wright to announce a new executive order that directs the Defense Department to enter into agreements to buy electricity from coal-fired power plants. The administration will also award funding to five coal plants in West Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina and Kentucky to recommission and upgrade the facilities.
Wright said that Trump’s effort to re-energize the coal industry would allow the U.S. to meet its artificial-intelligence goals, re-industrialize and stop a rise in electricity prices. “Our goal is to drive down the price of energy for Americans,” he said.
In addition, administration officials said the Tennessee Valley Authority is expected to soon vote to keep two coal plants operating after they were previously slated to come offline.
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