Trump wants the EPA to stop regulating climate pollution. Blue states have launched a high-stakes legal case against him

By Ella Nilsen, CNN

(CNN) — A coalition of 40 Democratic states, cities and counties sued the Trump administration on Thursday, challenging the recent termination of a longstanding policy allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate climate pollution.

The lawsuit, and others like it, will kick off a years-long court saga that could wind up at the Supreme Court and determine the fate of Trump’s plan to undo decades of climate policy.

First issued in 2009 during the Obama administration, the endangerment finding is considered the federal government’s most powerful tool to tackle climate pollution. The finding determined that six greenhouse gases could be categorized as dangerous to human health under the Clean Air Act. It has underpinned EPA’s authority to cut planet-warming pollution from power plants, vehicles and other sources.

The Trump administration terminated the endangerment finding in February, with President Donald Trump calling it a “scam” that “has nothing to do with public health.”

Thursday’s lawsuit comes after several environmental groups also sued the administration. The state coalition, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, filed a petition for review in the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the court to vacate the Trump administration’s move and reinstate the finding.

“The American people need their leaders to be honest and pragmatic about the threat of the climate crisis,” James said in a statement. “We will not let the federal government abandon its responsibility to the people.”

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called the endangerment finding the “backbone” of federal climate policy. Newsom stressed the urgency of addressing climate change, pointing to the current record-breaking heatwave hitting his state in March.

“Here in California, in the middle of winter, in this unprecedented heat wave, go up to Lake Tahoe and see for yourself, is this normal?” Newsom said. “Is there anything about this that’s normal?”

Asked to comment on the lawsuit, an EPA spokesperson said, “It is revealing that the plaintiff-states ran to the press before even filing their complaint. It illustrates that for them this is not about the law or the merits of any argument; rather they are clearly motivated by politics.”

The US DC Circuit Court of Appeals is the main legal battleground for the initial court fight between the Trump administration, environmental groups and blue states. If the latter groups prevail and Trump appeals, the case would likely wind up in front of the Supreme Court.

Ironically, that is exactly where the endangerment finding began. In 2007, a major Supreme Court case, Massachusetts v. EPA, found that greenhouse gases met the definition of an “air pollutant” under the Clean Air Act, and that the EPA had the authority to regulate them. That ruling gave birth to the endangerment finding two years later.

But the makeup of the bench is much more conservative than it was back then. The five justices that ruled in the majority for Mass v. EPA in 2007 are no longer on the bench; the three who dissented — Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts — are still there and have since been joined by three more conservatives.

Jody Freeman, director of Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program and a former climate official in the Obama White House, said in a recent interview that the White House may be betting on the case going all the way to the Supreme Court.

“The Trump administration is doing math, and they think they might be able to get five votes for their arguments, even though they’re arguing really a rehash of the same kinds of things that were argued back then and lost,” Freeman said.

The-CNN-Wire
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