MADISON, Wis. – Attorney General Josh Kaul today issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final rule rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which determined that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles contribute to air pollution that drives climate change and endangers public health and welfare.
“This adds to the litany of acts of self-sabotage from the Trump administration,” said AG Kaul. “Denying reality doesn’t change reality. It just leaves us less able to respond to it effectively.”
The 2009 Endangerment Finding followed the landmark 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which confirmed EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that threaten public health and welfare. In response to that opinion and after years of scientific review, EPA confirmed in 2009 that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles contribute to air pollution that harms public health and welfare in numerous ways. The agency then set standards to limit motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.
EPA’s rescission of the Endangerment Finding rests on the flawed assertion—soundly rejected by the Supreme Court—that it lacks legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and ignores longstanding scientific evidence that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The rule eliminates all existing and future federal greenhouse gas standards for vehicles, violating the agency’s legal obligations and fundamental responsibility to protect public health and welfare from environmental harm.
In the fall of 2025, AG Kaul joined multiple multistate actions, including comment letters urging the EPA to abandon the proposal, arguing that it would violate settled law, clear Supreme Court precedent, and scientific consensus, endanger hundreds of millions of Americans—particularly communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms—and cause unprecedented disruption to the regulatory landscape with catastrophic consequences for residents, industries, natural resources, and public investments.
View this press release on the DOJ website here.
