Padilla, Schiff, Whitehouse, Colleagues Investigate EPA’s “Fait Accompli” Repeal of Bedrock Climate Safeguard

Senators to Zeldin: "Presidential policy preferences do not give EPA carte blanche to bypass statutory mandates to engage in good faith with sound science and public input in favor of predetermined outcomes."

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.), members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), joined EPW Ranking Member Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and 38 other Senators in launching an investigation into Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin's decision to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding, the bedrock scientific determination underpinning EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. From the outset, EPA's public statements and private documents about the repeal have made clear that the rulemaking process was a fait accompli rather than a transparent notice-and-comment rulemaking.

In 2009, following the Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, EPA determined that greenhouse gases harm public health and welfare. This determination, known as the endangerment finding, provided the legal basis for U.S. climate policy. It is grounded in extensive peer-reviewed science and confirmed by successive National Climate Assessments and reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Twice, EPA's scientific finding has withstood challenge at the D.C. Circuit, and both times, the Supreme Court declined to consider appeals.

The repeal ignores more than half a century of evidence and constitutes a formal denial by EPA that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare - a position that defies decades of scientific evidence, agency precedent, Supreme Court rulings, and, perhaps most importantly, the lived experiences of millions of Americans. Repealing it immediately terminated greenhouse pollution standards for vehicles and sets the stage for rolling back pollution standards for power plants, airplanes, and more.

In a letter to Administrator Zeldin, the Senators pointed out that his public comments treated repeal as a foregone conclusion.

"You have described the endangerment finding as the 'holy grail of climate change religion,' and stated that under your leadership, EPA would be 'driving a dagger through the heart' of climate regulation," wrote the Senators. "In media appearances and official communications, you framed repeal as 'the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States,' emphasizing cost savings and ideological opposition rather than engagement with the statutory endangerment standard - or with the massive costs to human health and welfare that greenhouse gas-driven climate change imposes."

Not only do the Trump Administration's public comments make clear that it regarded repeal of the endangerment finding as a predetermined objective, but internal documents also reveal that EPA was moving to finalize the rescission before completing its required regulatory review. Before the nearly 600,000 public comments were reviewed - many of which outlined the scientific and legal infirmities of repealing the endangerment finding - Trump's EPA was already informing agency staff of its plans for repeal. According to public reporting, "internal agency notes and presentation slides show that you 'intend[ed] to sign off … on the final policy and legal justifications for repealing the so-called endangerment finding … climate rules for cars and trucks…'"

To justify the proposed repeal, Administrator Zeldin initially signaled that he would rely in part on a Department of Energy (DOE) pseudoscientific report written by an illegally formed federal working group of known climate deniers with close ties to fossil fuel and polluting industry actors. Rife with clear errors, cherry-picked data, and misrepresented facts, the report peddled the lie that human-caused climate change is not a threat. But, as the Senators explained, a "federal judge … ruled that the DOE violated federal law when Secretary Wright hand-picked the five researchers and convened the Working Group in secret, finding that its formation and operation breached the Federal Advisory Committee Act's requirements for transparency, public meetings, and balanced viewpoints. … The collapse of the Working Group effort simply underscores that EPA attempted, and failed, to manufacture support for a conclusion the established scientific record does not and cannot sustain."

"When an agency signals that the outcome of a proceeding is preordained, public participation becomes performative rather than meaningful, undermining the legitimacy of the rulemaking process and violating basic principles of administrative law. The Administrative Procedure Act prohibits agencies from engaging in rulemaking when decisionmakers have an 'unalterably closed mind.' … Presidential policy preferences do not give EPA carte blanche to bypass statutory mandates to engage in good faith with sound science and public input in favor of predetermined outcomes," concluded the Senators.

In addition to Padilla, Schiff, and Ranking Member Whitehouse, the letter was also signed by Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

The Senators requested documents and information from EPA concerning the agency's legal justification and decision-making process by February 27, 2026.

Senators Padilla and Schiff have been outspoken in underscoring the catastrophic environmental consequences of the Trump Administration's efforts to reverse the endangerment finding. Last September, Padilla and Schiff joined Representative Mike Levin (D-Calif.-49) and 41 other members of California's Democratic Congressional Delegation in calling on EPA to keep the endangerment finding in place. Earlier last year, Padilla, Schiff, and all other EPW Committee Democrats demanded answers about Zeldin's secretive efforts to roll back the longstanding EPA endangerment finding.

Full text of the letter is available here and below:

Dear Administrator Zeldin:

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) final rule rescinding the December 7, 2009, endangerment finding marks a fundamental break from nearly two decades of settled law, science, and regulatory practice under the Clean Air Act. Promulgated pursuant to the Supreme Court's direction in Massachusetts v. EPA, the endangerment finding forms the legal foundation for EPA's greenhouse gas regulatory framework. Its repeal destroys that framework and results in a failure to faithfully execute EPA's statutory mandate to protect human health-a mandate you acknowledged repeatedly during your confirmation hearing. But setting aside the dire implications of this final rule, the timing of and context for this entire enterprise suggest that this was a predetermined outcome, perhaps dictated more by concern for corporate interests than by an honest review of the law and science of climate change.

From the outset of the reconsideration of the endangerment finding, you have made repeated public statements characterizing its repeal as the objective rather than a question to be evaluated through notice-and-comment rulemaking. You have described the endangerment finding as the "holy grail of climate change religion," and stated that under your leadership, EPA would be "driving a dagger through the heart" of climate regulation. In media appearances and official communications, you framed repeal as "the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States," emphasizing cost savings and ideological opposition rather than engagement with the statutory endangerment standard-or with the massive costs to human health and welfare that greenhouse gas-driven climate change imposes.

Your improper, conclusory statements align with internal EPA documents showing that EPA leadership was moving to finalize the rescission of the endangerment finding before EPA staff had even had the chance to complete the agency's required regulatory review. As reported by Politico's E&E News in September 2025, internal agency notes and presentation slides show that you "intend[ed] to sign off . . . on the final policy and legal justifications for repealing the so-called endangerment finding and . . . climate rules for cars and trucks . . . before agency staff ha[d] time to sift through all public comments - or complete the legally required regulatory impact analysis." Reporting further stated that political appointees had told career EPA officials that the cost-benefit analysis reflected in the Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) would "have no bearing on the final regulatory package."

These statements and internal documents came to light while reconsideration was pending and before EPA had reviewed or responded to the more than 570,000 public comments submitted to the docket, many of which pointed out the proposed withdrawal's numerous scientific, legal, and logical deficiencies. And despite those comments, you and other Administration officials have repeatedly asserted that the endangerment finding had already been discredited and that repeal was necessary to restore "common sense" and reverse what they described as an illegitimate regulatory project.

These conclusory assertions were compounded by EPA's initial reliance on a report produced by the now-defunct Department of Energy (DOE) Climate Working Group, which the proposed rule cites as support for questioning the scientific bases of the endangerment finding. The group's five authors, including a former BP chief scientist and other researchers known for questioning mainstream climate science on issues such as the severity of climate impacts, have extensive histories promoting views at odds with widely accepted climate science. EPA's invocation of this body at the proposal stage represents an effort to manufacture a scientific rationale for rescission where the established record provides none.

Legal challenges quickly unraveled that effort. After a Massachusetts federal court found that the Working Group was subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act and, therefore, subject to certain transparency and public participation requirements, DOE Secretary Chris Wright disbanded the Working Group before it could finalize its report or address the legal deficiencies-presumably because doing so would expose fatal flaws in the Working Group's methodology.

In December, the agency was ordered to produce records related to the group's activities. A federal judge then ruled that the DOE violated federal law when Secretary Wright hand-picked the five researchers and convened the Working Group in secret, finding that its formation and operation breached the Federal Advisory Committee Act's requirements for transparency, public meetings, and balanced viewpoints. The court's judgement establishes as a matter of law that the report was produced through an unlawful and fundamentally compromised process, rendering its draft reports scientifically unreliable and legally unusable for any regulatory purposes. Although EPA now asserts in the final rule that it "is not relying" on either version of the Working Group's draft report, that disavowal does not cure the deeper problem: the agency's resort to an unlawfully constituted body, one selected to produce a predetermined narrative, reveals a desperate attempt to find any support they could, including an illegitimate scientific foundation, to justify rescinding the endangerment finding. The collapse of the Working Group effort simply underscores that EPA attempted, and failed, to manufacture support for a conclusion the established scientific record does not and cannot sustain.

Taken together, this evidence shows that EPA reached a firm conclusion about the outcome of the reconsideration well before reviewing the full administrative record or considering the substantial public comments submitted in response to the proposal.

EPA's approach is particularly troubling because the endangerment finding rests on decades of firm science. An agency seeking to reverse such a determination is not writing on a blank slate; it must grapple with the existing record of evidence and explain how the facts have changed or why a different conclusion is now justified. Yet during the reconsideration, Administration officials publicly dismissed the underlying science and asserted without evidence that the EPA had ignored data in finalizing the endangerment finding. These statements stand in stark contrast to the extensive scientific record showing that the harms of climate change have compounded since 2009, with worsening extreme heat, flooding, wildfires, and record-breaking global temperatures documented by U.S. and international scientific bodies. They also fly in the face of not only Massachusetts v. EPA but also two D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rulings upholding the endangerment finding-rulings the Supreme Court then declined to review.

In its final rule, EPA attempts to distance itself from the science question altogether by arguing that EPA's 2009 endangerment finding and subsequent regulation represented a "profound misreading" of Supreme Court directive in Massachusetts v. EPA, and thus that EPA's decision to make the finding in the first place, and to regulate based on that finding, was legally flawed. On the contrary, the Massachusetts court ordered EPA to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases from motor vehicles unless it either "determine[d] that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provide[d] some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do." This EPA does neither. EPA's willful disregard of the applicable law, in its determination to shirk its regulatory obligation, reflects the predetermined nature of the final rollback.

When an agency signals that the outcome of a proceeding is preordained, public participation becomes performative rather than meaningful, undermining the legitimacy of the rulemaking process and violating basic principles of administrative law. The Administrative Procedure Act prohibits agencies from engaging in rulemaking when decisionmakers have an "unalterably closed mind." Notice-and-comment procedures are intended to ensure that agency decisions are informed by evidence, expert analysis, and public input-not to be discarded or ignored so that the agency can ratify outcomes that have already been decided. That risk of prejudgment is particularly acute here in light of President Trump's repeated attacks on climate science and regulation. Presidential policy preferences do not give EPA carte blanche to bypass statutory mandates to engage in good faith with sound science and public input in favor of predetermined outcomes.

The procedural integrity of EPA's reconsideration is further undermined by the fact that regulated industries have already undertaken significant, difficult-to-reverse investment decisions that assume reduced or eliminated greenhouse gas regulation-despite the absence of any final agency action. Since the announcement of the reconsideration, major actors in the transportation sector have adjusted capital planning, production strategies, and retirement schedules in ways that are consistent with an anticipated rollback of federal climate regulation, rather than with the continuation of the regulatory framework established under the 2009 endangerment finding. These actions, sometimes amounting to generational shifts in investment, raise substantial questions about whether EPA has already committed to that outcome, what EPA has communicated to those industries, and whether EPA has fully disclosed any communications or assurances influencing those expectations in the administrative record.

In December 2025, for example, Ford announced a $19.5 billion write-down tied to pivot away from electric vehicles, discontinuing production of the all-electric F-150 Lightning, scrapping plans for an electric commercial van, and abandoning development of a full-size electric truck planned for 2028. General Motors reported a $6 billion charge in January and a $1.6 billion charge in October 2025 following a reassessment of its EV strategy; in the same period, it announced thousands of layoffs at locations its Factory Zero EV plant and a separate EV battery plant. Executives at the "Detroit Three" explicitly pointed to the Administration's deregulatory posture when announcing renewed investments in gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles. Already, industry is relying on EPA's expected retreat from federal greenhouse gas regulation.

To assist in our understanding of the bases, process, and effects of the repeal of the endangerment finding, please respond to the following questions and requests for production of documents no later than February 27, 2026:

1. Please identify and produce all communications, emails, memoranda, briefing materials, or meeting notes created or held by the Administrator, Deputy Administrator, Assistant Administrators, and senior political staff regarding the endangerment finding from January 20, 2025, through the final rulemaking announcement. Include all documents discussing the justification, anticipated outcome, or strategy for reconsideration, as well as any analyses or statements reflecting whether agency leadership had reached conclusions regarding the final rule prior to OIRA review.

2. Please identify and produce all communications, including emails, memoranda, meeting notes, text messages, and call logs between EPA leadership (including the Administrator, Deputy Administrator, Assistant Administrators, and senior political staff) and representatives of regulated industries, trade associations, or industry-funded organizations concerning the repeal or reconsideration of the endangerment finding dating from January 20, 2025, through the final rulemaking announcement.

3. Please identify and produce all communications, analyses, or internal memoranda discussing how regulated entities have relied or may rely on the 2009 endangerment finding in planning investments, capital expenditures, retirement schedules, production strategies, or other operational decisions. Include all materials reflecting EPA's consideration of, or failure to consider, such reliance in the decision to repeal the finding.

4. Please identify all communications, including emails, meeting notes, text messages, and call logs, between EPA and the White House, OIRA, the Department of Energy, or other federal agencies regarding the outcome, timing, or scope of the endangerment finding reconsideration.

Sincerely,

###