CVNM Statement in Response to EPA Announcement Gutting Endangerment Finding
EPA Abandons Science and the Law to Benefit Polluting Corporations
SANTA FE – Tuesday, July 29th, 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency is proposing a draft rule eliminating the endangerment finding and repealing all resulting greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines, in particular the Clean Car and Truck Standards.
In the agency’s press release, it claimed that “without the endangerment finding, the EPA would lack the statutory authority under the Clean Air Act to prescribe standards for greenhouse gas emissions.” According to the EPA, the two largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States are transportation (28%) and electric power, primarily from oil, gas and coal (25%).
New Mexico recently joined 16 other states in adopting California’s more stringent Clean Car and Truck Standards, which are also supported under the Clean Air Act and the endangerment finding. The EPA is also close to approval of delayed implementation of methane regulations under Clean Air Act Section 111 regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric generating units. That announcement is expected soon and would allow business as usual for the fossil fuel industry. In response, Conservation Voters New Mexico Climate and Energy Advocate Justin Garoutte issued the following statement:
“The Trump EPA’s plan makes blatant climate denial official U.S. policy. Let’s be clear: eliminating the endangerment finding and methane regulation is a Polluters’ First agenda, allowing the industries responsible for more than 50% of climate pollution in the country to evade regulation. This will raise costs, harm the health of American families, stymy climate action and fuel extreme weather events that destroy communities, even as the federal government sheds its emergency management responsibility. Just as with Trump’s tax bill, which gives billionaires even more billions while cutting essential services from the people most in need, ending efforts to reduce car and truck tailpipe emissions and methane emissions from oil and gas operations will let polluters get richer while hardworking families pay the price. We call on state decisionmakers to do all they can to protect New Mexicans and address the climate crisis.”
BACKGROUND
The endangerment finding is a foundational scientific finding that carbon dioxide, methane, and other climate-changing pollutants are dangerous to our health and well-being and must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. In the landmark 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA case, the US Supreme Court found that the EPA did have authority to regulate greenhouse gases. The agency, under President George W. Bush, had asserted that it did not and several states and cities sued to force the agency to begin regulating auto tailpipe emissions under the Clean Air Act. The majority opinion in the case found that:
“The Clean Air Act’s sweeping definition of ‘air pollutant’ includes ‘any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical … substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air’ … On its face, the definition embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe, and underscores that intent through the repeated use of the word ‘any.’ Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are without a doubt ‘physical [and] chemical … substance[s] which [are] emitted into … the ambient air.’ The statute is unambiguous.”
The EPA, now acting under the Obama administration, issued the endangerment finding in 2009 as a result of the case.
Section 111
Support for reducing oil and gas methane waste and pollution is widespread and bipartisan. Polling has found that more than two-thirds of voters in battleground and key oil and gas producing states support efforts to swiftly enact stronger standards on methane pollution from oil and gas development to protect the air we breathe, safeguard the health and well being of our families and climate, and create jobs.
Even oil and gas producers themselves such as BP, Equinor, and Oxy have expressed support for the EPA to regulate methane emissions from the sector, creating a stable regulatory baseline for operators across the country. Methane mitigation creates well-paying jobs across the country. Reconsidering the endangerment finding and commonsense pollution reduction standards jeopardizes this stability and progress.
###
CVNM is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization connecting the people of New Mexico to their political power to protect our air, land, water, wildlife and communities for a healthy Land of Enchantment. CVNM does this by mobilizing voters, winning elections, holding elected officials accountable and advancing responsible public policies.