Obama Warns Americans Face Greater Danger as Trump Kills Endangerment Finding Benefitting Fossil Fuel Profits

Barack Obama has come out swinging against Donald Trump's decision to bin a cornerstone climate rule, saying Americans will be 'less safe, less healthy' whilst fossil fuel companies rake in bigger profits.

The former president didn't hold back after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Thursday it was scrapping the 2009 endangerment finding—a scientific ruling that said greenhouse gases threaten people's health. That finding has been the backbone of pretty much every federal climate rule for cars, power stations and factories for nearly two decades.

Trump Hails 'Largest Deregulatory Action'

Trump stood at the White House and called it 'the largest deregulatory action in American history, by far'. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin branded the endangerment finding 'the Holy Grail of federal regulatory overreach'. The repeal wipes out all greenhouse gas rules for vehicles made between 2012 and 2027, and could gut regulations on power plants and oil and gas sites.

Obama fired back on social media straightaway. 'Without it, we'll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change—all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money,' he wrote.

How We Got Here

The whole thing started with a Supreme Court case back in 2007. Massachusetts and other states sued the EPA, and the court ruled that greenhouse gases count as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Two years later, Obama's EPA made it official—six greenhouse gases endanger public health.

Courts have backed up that finding repeatedly. When fossil fuel groups tried to challenge it in 2012, the appeals court shot them down.

But now Trump's team is binning the lot. He's been calling climate change a 'hoax' for years, and on Thursday, he doubled down. 'It has nothing to do with public health,' Trump told reporters. 'It just was all a scam, a giant scam.'

The timing's grim. Last year, America got hammered by 23 separate billion-dollar weather disasters. The Los Angeles fires alone caused £65 billion in damage. Flash floods in Texas killed at least 138 people.

States Prepare Legal Fight

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell isn't having it. She's pledged to take the EPA to court, saying the repeal 'shows just how far this Administration will go to grant favours to polluters—ignoring clear Supreme Court precedent, basic facts, and decades of scientific research'.

California Governor Gavin Newsom and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, who lead the US Climate Alliance, called it 'unlawful' and said it 'ignores basic science, and denies reality'. The American Lung Association and American Public Health Association have already said they're suing.

Gina McCarthy, who ran the EPA under Obama, didn't mince words. 'This EPA would rather spend its time in court working for the fossil fuel industry than protecting us from pollution,' she said.

Scientists are baffled by the administration's claims. The American Geophysical Union pointed out that the 2009 finding was based on mountains of research, and the evidence has only got stronger. The World Weather Attribution group found that human-caused emissions turned 2025 into one of the hottest years on record.

Trump's interior secretary, Doug Burgum, defended the move by saying it'll help coal companies. 'CO₂ was never a pollutant,' he said. But that flies in the face of what scientists have been saying for decades.

The White House reckons scrapping the rule will save Americans £1.3 trillion ($1.77 trillion) and knock more than £2,400 ($3,255) off the price of new cars. They haven't shown their workings, and environmental groups reckon those numbers are dodgy.

What Happens Next

This is different from Trump's first presidency. Back then, he weakened car emission rules but left the endangerment finding alone. Getting rid of it completely is a much bigger deal.

Legal experts reckon the administration's going to spend years fighting this out in court. The Supreme Court said back in 2007 that greenhouse gases are pollutants. Trump's EPA is now saying the opposite.

About 28 per cent of America's greenhouse gas emissions come from car and truck exhaust. Power plants kick out another huge chunk. Without the endangerment finding, there's no legal requirement to do anything about it.

Dr Lisa Patel, who leads the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, said the move 'prioritises the profits of big oil and gas companies and polluters over clean air and water'.

Scrapping the endangerment finding doesn't just undo one rule—it pulls the rug out from under America's entire approach to tackling climate change. Future administrations wanting to bring it back would have to start from scratch, which could take years.

Obama's 2009 finding survived multiple court challenges because the science behind it was rock solid. Now Trump's betting he can convince judges that all that science was wrong. Given the Supreme Court's previous rulings, that's going to be an uphill battle.