California: Donald Trump declares the Republican Party the pro-pollution party
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Feb 12, 2026

Donald Trump declares the Republican Party the pro-pollution party

EPA repeal puts polluters over public health

What you need to know: The Trump administration repealed the U.S. EPA's Endangerment Finding, disavowing the federal government's authority to protect Americans from climate pollution and regulate vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. Governor Newsom condemned this reckless decision and vowed that California will sue to challenge it while continuing to lead the fight against climate pollution.

SACRAMENTO – Today, Governor Gavin Newsom blasted the Trump administration for repealing the U.S. EPA's Endangerment Finding, doing the oil industry's bidding once again while ignoring binding law, overwhelming science, and the lived reality of Californians and the American people. This decision overturns the 2009 scientific determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. That determination has been the legal foundation for nearly all federal actions to curb planet-warming emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, including the authority to regulate vehicle greenhouse gas emissions, one of the nation's largest sources of climate pollution.

The Clean Air Act could not be clearer: U.S. EPA has an affirmative duty to protect public health and welfare from air pollutants, including greenhouse gases, a responsibility the Supreme Court affirmed in 2007.

This decision betrays the American people and cements the Republican Party's status as the pro-pollution party. If this reckless decision survives legal challenges, it will lead to more deadly wildfires, more extreme heat deaths, more climate-driven floods and droughts, and greater threats to communities nationwide—all while the EPA dismisses the overwhelming science that has protected public health for decades.

Donald Trump may put corporate greed ahead of communities and families, but California will not stand by—we will sue to challenge this illegal action, and we will continue fighting climate pollution here in our state. We will continue to lead because the lives and livelihoods of our people depend on it.

Governor Gavin Newsom

In September 2025, Governor Newsom submitted a formal comment to the U.S. EPA opposing EPA's proposal to reverse the Endangerment Finding. Watch his video comments and read his full letter.



The cost of Trump's dereliction of duty will be measured in human lives and economic devastation. In California alone, wildfires fueled by rising temperatures have killed hundreds, destroyed entire communities and tens of thousands of homes, and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage.

"Trump's U.S. EPA is ignoring what Americans see with their own eyes: climate pollution is burning homes, killing jobs and forests, driving up insurance and food costs, and harming health across the nation," said California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) Secretary Yana Garcia. "CalEPA will use every authority available to protect clean air, healthy land, and clean water while the federal government turns its back on the health and safety of the American people."

Extreme heat is now the deadliest climate impact, responsible for more annual deaths than wildfires and floods. Nationwide, the picture is no less dire: in 2023 alone, the United States saw 28 separate climate-driven weather disasters exceeding $1 billion each — the highest number ever recorded — claiming more than 400 American lives and causing $92 billion in damages.

"This proposal isn't just bad policy — it's a reckless disregard of basic science and the health of every American," said California Air Resources Board Chair Lauren Sanchez. "When an administration sides with polluters over people, it doesn't just abandon commonsense climate action; it abandons our country's future. But let me be clear: California will not back down. We will continue to stand up for the right to breathe clean air and keep driving forward in every way possible. All options are on the table."

By siding with polluters over science, U.S. EPA is telling wildfire victims to ignore the flames, flood victims to ignore the rising water, and parents of asthmatic children to ignore the dirty air that chokes their respiratory systems and takes their breath away. That is not leadership — it is an insult.

"Air quality regulations help us breathe cleaner air, producing health benefits across California and the United States and decreasing air pollution-related heart and lung disease. Additional climate change health impacts include increased injury and loss of life due to wildfires and severe storms, increased occurrences of vector-borne and water-borne diseases, and stress and mental trauma from loss of livelihoods, property loss and displacement," said Dr. Erica Pan, California Department of Public Health Director and State Public Health Officer. "Climate change also disproportionately harms the mental health and well-being of children and youth, with heat, extreme weather, poor air quality, displacement, and other impacts leading to anxiety, depression, sleep troubles, post-traumatic stress disorder, impairment to cognitive development and function, decreases in learning, and other mental health challenges that can have long-term consequences."

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Trump's war on science and public health

Today's betrayal of science is part of a sustained campaign to weaken environmental protections, undermine public health, and stifle American innovation. Repealing the Endangerment Finding fits squarely within the broader pattern of actions that prioritize polluters over people and ideology over evidence. To name a few, the Trump administration has:
  • Weakened how air pollution rules account for public health, no longer considering the economic costs of harm to human health.
  • Proposed weaker fuel economy standards, a move that will force Americans to spend billions more at the pump, while poisoning the air in our communities.
  • Allowed coal-burning power plants to emit higher levels of toxic pollutants, including neurotoxins like mercury.
  • Ended federal investments in electric vehicle markets, undercutting U.S. competitiveness and domestic manufacturing.
  • Imposed regulatory chaos so severe that companies canceled tens of billions of dollars in clean energy investments in 2025, costing American jobs and slowing innovation.

Beyond rolling back protections, the administration has gone further by attacking scientific integrity itself. Donald Trump has also:
  • Censored climate science information and restricted federal agencies from using basic terms like "green" or "emissions."
  • Enabled polluters to stop disclosing emissions data to the public.
  • Fired scientists, canceled research programs, deleted scientific datasets, and began to dismantle the national climate research lab in Colorado.
  • Removed public-facing climate information from government websites.
  • Allowed Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a government-sanctioned fossil fuel industry lobbyist, to waste taxpayer dollars on an anti-science Department of Energy report authored by handpicked climate deniers, so riddled with falsehoods that 85 independent scientists published a 400+ page takedown (https://sites.google.com/tamu.edu/doeresponse/home), forcing the Trump administration to disband the effort weeks later.
  • Withdrawn (https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/01/07/governor-newsom-slams-brainless-trump-for-surrendering-global-leadership-ceding-jobs-and-economic-ground-to-china/) from the United Nations climate framework and 65 other international organizations, surrendering America's leadership on the world stage, weakening our ability to compete in the economy of the future, and ceding jobs and economic ground to China.
  • Weakened (https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/01/27/weak-trump-retreats-from-paris-agreement-as-california-leads-climate-action-on-the-global-stage/) U.S. global leadership in the race to cut pollution, create jobs, and build the industries of the future by exiting the Paris Agreement for the second time.

California has been fighting back against the Trump administration's assault on climate protections from the beginning. In September 2025, California joined 24 states (https://usclimatealliance.org/letter/epa-endangerment-finding-letter-sep-2025/) across the country, representing 55 percent of the U.S. population, in submitting comments opposing the EPA's proposal to repeal the Endangerment Finding. The California Air Resources Board also filed (https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/carb-submits-scathing-critique-u-s-epas-illegal-effort-overturn-endangerment-finding) detailed comments debunking the U.S. Department of Energy's fraudulent study that EPA is using to justify eliminating federal climate programs. Through the U.S. Climate Alliance (https://usclimatealliance.org/press-releases/u-s-climate-alliance-on-epas-climate-denial-and-science-office-closure-americans-deserve-the-truth/) and other coalitions, California continues to challenge the administration's climate denial and abandonment of science.

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California's climate leadership

Pollution is down and the economy is up. Greenhouse gas emissions in California are down 21% since 2000 (https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/11/06/world-leading-economy-and-climate-solutions-californias-emissions-drop-in-2023-driven-by-clean-transportation/) — even as the state's GDP increased 81% in that same time period, all while becoming the world's fourth largest economy.

California also continues to set clean energy records. In 2023, the state was powered by two-thirds clean energy (https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/07/14/in-historic-first-california-powered-by-two-thirds-clean-energy-becoming-largest-economy-in-the-world-to-achieve-milestone/), the largest economy in the world to achieve this level. California has also run on 100% clean electricity for part of the day almost every day this year (https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/07/10/california-scores-more-clean-energy-records-9-in-10-days-this-year-partially-powered-by-100-clean-energy/).

Since the beginning of the Newsom Administration, battery storage has surged to nearly 17,000 megawatts — a 2,100%+ increase, and over 30,000 megawatts of new resources have been added to the electric grid. California now has 33% of the storage (https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/california-energy-storage-system-survey) capacity estimated to be needed by 2045 to reach 100% clean electricity.

Press releases (https://www.gov.ca.gov/category/press-releases/), Recent news (https://www.gov.ca.gov/category/recent-news/)

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