California is taking Donald Trump to court for breaking the law to put polluter profits before American lives
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Mar 19, 2026

California is taking Donald Trump to court for breaking the law to put polluter profits before American lives

Anti-science repeal of the Endangerment Finding breaks the law and abandons EPA's mandate to protect public health

What you need to know: The Trump administration repealed the U.S. EPA's Endangerment Finding — the scientific basis for federal regulation of climate pollution — doing the oil industry's bidding while ignoring binding law, overwhelming science, and the lived reality of the American people. Governor Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta are suing to stop it.

SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta today announced a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's repeal of the U.S. EPA's Endangerment Finding — the 2009 scientific recognition that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and the legal premise of federal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The Clean Air Act is clear: 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. By repealing the Endangerment Finding, the Trump administration is not exercising its scientific judgment. It is breaking the law.

This is what corruption looks like. Donald Trump is breaking the laws that protect Americans from climate pollution — all to enrich his Big Oil and his wealthy polluting allies. Workers, families, and communities would pay the price, left choking on dirty air. No one is above the law in this country. Not even the president. We'll fight this lawlessness in court.

Governor Gavin Newsom

"With the unlawful rescission of the Endangerment Finding, President Trump and his EPA have abandoned their most important mission: protecting the health and welfare of the American people. The science doesn't lie: Climate change and GHG emissions are harming public health and causing devastating and ever-worsening disasters. Our communities have felt the impact of destructive wildfires, watched families run from burning homes, inhaling toxic fumes, and we've seen entire communities wash away in severe floods. The President can't keep his head in the sand — climate change is real and decades of settled science warned us this was coming," said Attorney General Rob Bonta. "Let me be clear: This unlawful rescission is not about cutting 'red tape.' The president is choosing Big Oil profits over our health, and betting that the American people won't notice the cost until the bill comes due at the expense of our communities. We will not stand idly by while the federal government abdicates its responsibility to protect the public and follow the law. California will vigorously defend the Endangerment Finding in court and continue to fight to protect our communities, our health, and our natural resources."

"The Trump Administration is failing to protect everyday people across this country in countless ways, including through their unlawful attempts to unwind decades of science-based policy," said Yana Garcia, Secretary for Environmental Protection. "The truth is that climate change presents immediate threats to human health and to our environment, and rising temperatures threaten the welfare of American families by increasing household costs. California remains committed to climate action and will keep fighting back because our people and our future deserve better."

"The Trump Administration, in recklessly repealing the Endangerment Finding, is abdicating their responsibility to protect American lives," said California Air Resources Board Chair Lauren Sanchez.  "California isn't going to sit back and watch while the federal government dismantles critical public health protections — we're going to fight back."

"Federal air quality regulations are critical to protecting human health from the impacts of climate change," said Dr. Rita Nguyen, California's Assistant Health Officer. "Climate change is a serious threat to human health as California experiences more frequent, more severe, and longer-lasting episodes of extreme heat. For instance, during the September 2022 record-breaking 10-day heat wave in California, there was a 5 percent increase in deaths – 395 more deaths than would be expected. Additionally, climate-related hazards like heat, wildfires, extreme weather, and poor air quality can disproportionately harm the mental health and well-being of children and youth, contributing to anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, decreases in learning, and other challenges that can have long-term consequences."

If this reckless decision survives legal challenge, it will mean more deadly wildfires, more extreme heat deaths, and more climate-driven floods and droughts — all while Trump's political appointees, many of whom were handpicked by the oil and gas industry, dismiss the overwhelming science that has protected public health for decades.

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. Extreme heat is now the deadliest climate impact, responsible for more annual deaths than wildfires and floods. Nationwide, in 2024 alone, the United States saw 27 separate climate-driven weather disasters exceeding $1 billion each — the highest number ever recorded — claiming more than 560 American lives and causing $183 billion in damages.

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How we got here

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases are pollutants subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. Two years later, the U.S. EPA formalized that ruling with the 2009 Endangerment Finding — the scientific recognition that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and the legal premise for federal regulation on climate pollution from vehicles, the largest source of U.S. emissions. Since repealing the 2009 Endangerment Finding for vehicles, EPA has since put a target on similar findings underlying power plant and aircraft carbon regulations as well.

From the moment the Trump administration signaled its intent to reverse that determination, California pushed back. In July 2025, the U.S. EPA proposed to repeal the Endangerment Finding. In September 2025, Governor Newsom submitted a formal comment to the EPA opposing the repeal — calling it a dereliction of duty, a moral abdication, and a betrayal of the agency's mission. That same month, California joined 24 states representing 55 percent of the U.S. population in opposing the proposal. The California Air Resources Board filed detailed comments debunking the fraudulent Department of Energy study the EPA was using to justify the repeal.

The Trump administration repealed the Endangerment Finding anyway — declaring the Republican Party the pro-pollution party. Today, California is taking them to court.

Trump's war on science and public health

The Trump administration'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 (https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/carb-calls-out-u-s-department-energy-study-spreading-misinformation-and-devaluing-human-life) authored by handpicked climate deniers, so riddled with falsehoods that 85 independent scientists (https://www.npr.org/2025/09/02/nx-s1-5521384/energy-report-scientists-climate-change#:~:text=The%20group%20of%20climate%20scientists,climate%20change%20has%20exacerbated%20droughts) 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.

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/), Top story (https://www.gov.ca.gov/category/top-story/)

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