Attorney General Tong Leads States, Counties, and Cities in Fighting Rescission of EPA's Landmark 2009 Endangerment Funding

Press Releases 09/22/2025 Attorney General Tong Leads States, Counties, and Cities in Fighting Rescission of EPA's Landmark 2009 Endangerment Funding Connecticut Defends Climate Science and Fights EPA's Proposal to Roll Back Federal Motor Vehicle Emission Standards that Protect the Health and Safety of the American Public  (Hartford, CT) - Attorney General William Tong today co-led a coalition of 23 attorneys general and 7 counties and cities opposing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed rescission of its landmark Endangerment Finding that affirmed greenhouse gas emissions, including from motor vehicles, drive climate change and endanger public health and welfare. The Trump Administration's flawed and illegal proposal, issued August 1, 2025, would undermine EPA's authority to curb air pollution and unilaterally eliminate all existing EPA vehicle emission standards. The 2009 Endangerment Finding was the direct result of the landmark 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which affirmed EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that endanger public health and welfare. In response to that ruling, and after more than two years of scientific review, EPA determined in 2009 that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles contribute to air pollution that endangers public health and welfare. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) confirmed last week that "EPA's 2009 finding that the human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence." EPA's new proposal, which relies on a flawed, unlawful, and unfinished report issued by the Department of Energy's Climate Working Group, seeks to reverse that finding with no grounding in law or science. "The EPA's deeply flawed proposal utterly fails on the law and the science. If the Trump Administration cared about the truth, or about protecting our people, it would withdraw this proposal immediately. If it goes through, this rescission will only make Connecticut more vulnerable to extreme weather, extreme heat, and rising sea levels. We all know what's actually going on here. Rescinding the Endangerment Finding is about one thing-bigger profits for the world's biggest polluters. This is reckless and lawless, and we're fighting back at every single step," said Attorney General Tong. Today's comment letter is the latest in a series of actions Attorney General Tong has taken to oppose EPA's dangerous proposal. Endangerment Finding Comment Letter In a 225-page comment submitted to the EPA today, Attorney General Tong and the coalition argue that rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding would violate settled law, Supreme Court precedent, and scientific consensus, endangering the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans, particularly those in communities disproportionately impacted by environmental harms. Scientific research has proven that every region of our country is experiencing the ongoing and significant harms of climate change and motor vehicle pollution, including changes in temperature, precipitation, and sea level rise. Extreme summer heat, driven by climate change, is leading to increased rates of heat-related illness and death, particularly among vulnerable populations like children, the elderly, low-income individuals, and workers. Increasing rates of natural disasters - like wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, and droughts - not only have a devastating effect on public health and safety, but on state and local economies as well. Not only does EPA's proposed rescission ignore those facts, which are backed by robust, peer-reviewed climate science, but it also violates EPA's legal obligations under the federal Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change. The coalition argues that EPA's new legal interpretations are fundamentally inconsistent with the Clean Air Act's plain language and binding Supreme Court precedent, and that the proposal would mark a drastic reversal of its own longstanding findings without any explanation grounded in science. To make matters worse, the Climate Working Group report on which EPA relies is procedurally and substantively flawed, yet EPA blindly accepts its findings and disregards the overwhelming scientific consensus, which was just reaffirmed by NAS last week. In filing this comment letter, the coalition urges EPA to abandon its unlawful and unsupported proposal to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding. Joining Attorney General Tong in filing this comment letter, which was co-led by the attorneys general of Connecticut, California, Massachusetts and New York, were the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin; the Cities of Chicago, New York, and Oakland; the City and County of Denver; the City and County of San Francisco and the Counties of Martin Luther King Jr., California and Santa Clara, California. Motor Vehicles Comment Letter In withdrawing the 2009 Endangerment Finding, EPA also proposes to repeal all existing federal greenhouse gas emissions standards for all motor vehicle classes and all years. In a second comment submitted to the EPA today, the coalition explains that this unprecedented disruption to the regulatory landscape of the last fifteen years will be catastrophic for the States and Local Governments' residents, industries, natural resources, and public investments. For instance, EPA projected last year that current motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions standards would prevent more than 8 billion metric tons of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions over the next 30 years, avoiding $1.82 trillion in climate harms. If those reductions from the federal motor vehicle greenhouse gas program alone were the emissions of a country, that country would rank No. 33 on a list of the world's top emitters. A robust regulatory program for greenhouse gas emissions is also crucial to vehicle affordability, consumer choice, and to the success of the American automotive industry. The greenhouse gas program for vehicles spurs automakers to innovate and create better cars, saving drivers hundreds of billions of dollars in fuel and maintenance costs, and helps support domestic manufacturing and jobs. Repealing that program, as EPA now proposes, will shutter factories, kill jobs, and wipe out billions of dollars in investments by Congress, States, and local governments to keep the American auto industry thriving and globally competitive. The best way to support drivers and auto workers, while also helping the planet, is to continue promoting innovation in the most cutting-edge vehicle technologies. Joining Attorney General Tong in filing this comment letter, which was led by the attorney general of California, were the attorneys general of Massachusetts, New York, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Hawai'i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia; and the Chief Legal Officers of the City of Chicago, Illinois; the City of New York, New York; the City of Oakland, California; Martin Luther King, Jr. County, Washington; the City and County of Denver, Colorado; the City and County of San Francisco, California; and the County of Santa Clara, California. In addition to the actions described above, the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General testified before EPA on August 19 to oppose its proposed rescission of the 2009 Endangerment Finding and motor vehicle greenhouse gas standards. Climate Working Group Comment Letter On September 2, Attorney General Tong joined a coalition of 22 attorneys general, three cities, and two counties in filing a comment letter opposing the CWG report that EPA relied on in its proposed rescission of the 2009 Endangerment Finding. In that comment letter, the coalition identified numerous procedural and substantive legal flaws in the Climate Working Group report. In creating the Climate Working Group, the Department of Energy selected five widely known climate change skeptics, ignored well-established scientific integrity standards, and failed to comply with Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) procedures, which require the disclosure of all committee-related records and that committee meetings be open to the public. The report - written in less than two months and riddled with inaccuracies, factual omissions, and mischaracterizations of irrefutable climate science research - attempts to critique decades of peer-reviewed scientific research establishing that the emission of greenhouse gases cause climate change and endanger public health and welfare. In filing the comment letter, the coalition urged the Department of Energy to withdraw the unlawful and misguided CWG report. Joining Attorney General Tong in filing the comment letter, which was co-led by the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New York, were the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the Chief Legal Officers of the City and County of Denver, Martin Luther King Jr. County, Washington, and the Cities of Chicago and New York. Climate Working Group Amicus Brief On August 29, Attorney General Tong joined a coalition of 19 attorneys general and the City of New York in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Environmental Defense Fund v. Wright, supporting the plaintiffs in their effort to declare the Climate Working Group's report unlawful. In their brief, the coalition argued that the Department of Energy violated FACA by establishing and utilizing the Climate Working Group, and that this violation will harm state and local governments' strong interest in ensuring that the federal government rely on the best available science to guide its climate policy decisions. On September 17, the Court held that the Climate Working Group is not exempt from FACA. Joining Attorney General Tong in filing this amicus brief, which was led by the attorney general of Massachusetts, were the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the City of New York. Assistant Attorneys General William Dornbos, Benjamin Cheney, Scott Koschwitz and Jill Lacedonia, Special Assistant Attorney General Jessica Gibree and Deputy Associate Attorney General Matthew Levine, Chief of the Environment Section, assisted the Attorney General in this matter. Twitter: @AGWilliamTong Facebook: CT Attorney General Media Contact: Elizabeth Benton [email protected] Consumer Inquiries: 860-808-5318 [email protected] Twitter Facebook Email Print