‘The Holy Grail of federal overreach’: Trump puts Obama’s greenhouse gas rule in the landfill

Describing the “scientific finding” used as the reason for regulating greenhouse gases, adopted under Barack Obama’s administration, as “the Holy Grail of federal overreach,” President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on Thursday confirmed the cancellation of that foundation for air quality regulation.

A report from KHOU revealed it was the “endangerment finding,” the assumption that carbon dioxide and other gases somehow threatened public health and welfare, that was dropped.

Breaking News: The Trump administration repealed the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and well being, meaning that the EPA can no longer regulate them. https://t.co/pUJpRC2yoK

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 12, 2026

@POTUS: “Under the process just completed by the @EPA, we are officially terminating the so-called Endangerment Finding — a disastrous Obama-era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers.” pic.twitter.com/PqVUS1GtQN

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 12, 2026

“American families will save over $2,400 for a new vehicle.”

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the end of an Obama-era environmental policy related to greenhouse gas emissions standards that “set off the most costly regulatory power grab our country has ever experienced.” pic.twitter.com/W3hhJH3uMA

— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 12, 2026

The political statement from the Obama era also was the foundation for many of the programs used to fight so-called “climate change,” which used to be known as global warming until the warming essentially vanished.

It was the Environmental Protection Agency that formally dropped the Obama rule. Obama’s own actions actually expressed his disbelief in the ideology, as on leaving office he purchased a beach-front estate for many millions of dollars, an estate that if climate change, global warming and the accompanying sea level rise were true, would be under water in coming years.

KHOU explained, “The endangerment finding by the Obama administration is the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.”

Trump said the EPA’s fix to the problem was “the single largest deregulatory action in American history.”

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Obama’s rule was “the Holy Grail of federal regulatory overreach.”

Gone now are greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars, which have added thousands to the price of the vhiecles.

Myron Ebell, an activist who had challenged the science behind the original move, said, it “is the most important step taken by the Trump administration so far to return to energy and economic sanity.”

Courts previously have rejected cases that would have thrown out the “endangerment finding,” and supporters said it is important to support work defending the nation against the threats of climate change, such as floods and heat waves.

David Doniger, an activist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, claimed in the report Trump and Zeldin are trying to use repeal of the finding as a “kill shot”’ that would allow the administration to make nearly all climate regulations invalid.

Affected would be not only vehicle emissions but factories, power plans and more.

A report from ABC said the move actually, according to the EPA, is “eliminating both the Obama-era 2009 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding and all subsequent federal GHG emission standards for all vehicles and engines of model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond.”

The political statement from 2009 has given the government the power to regulate a number of gases, because they are a “threat.”

Zeldin confirmed consumer choices have been restricted by the agenda, and “trillions of dollars” have been imposed on consumers in hidden costs.

The EPA estimated the move would save taxpayers $1.3 trillion, suggesting consumers might save as much as $2,400 built into the cost of a new vehicle.