On Wednesday, February 18, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast:For nearly 20 years, the EPA has been regulating greenhouse gases to fight climate change. Last week, the Trump administration repealed the finding. Michael Gerrard, a law professor at Columbia University, joins The Excerpt to share his insights regarding the legal, political and scientific issues at play.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it.This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Podcasts:True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here
Dana Taylor:
Last week, the Trump administration announced it was repealing a 2009 determination called the Endangerment Finding. That finding had been the basis by which the EPA had assumed the right to regulate greenhouse gases for nearly 20 years. How will its repeal impact Americans in this Supreme Court likely to join this heated debate?
Hello, and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Wednesday, February 18th, 2026. Here to help us unpack some of the legal, political and scientific issues relating to a warming climate is Michael Gerrard, one of the foremost environmental lawyers in the country, and a law professor at Columbia University, where he's the founder and director of the groundbreaking Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Thank you so much for coming on, Michael.
Michael Gerrard:
Good to be with you.
Dana Taylor:
Since taking office in January of 2025, Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator under PresidentDonald Trump, has either repealed or significantly weakened dozens of Biden era environmental regulations. Can you please tell me about some of the most significant ones and what their impact has been?
Michael Gerrard:
Well, he's weakened the regulations on clean cars. There had been significant rules that required cars to be more energy efficient. California had the ability to adopt stronger standards, which were driving a push toward electric vehicles in California and other states. So, all of that has been wiped out. They've also taken away the standards for cleaning up power plants.
Dana Taylor:
As you know, Zeldin has also canceled many of the project grants that the EPA has traditionally funded. What are some of the biggest ones?
Michael Gerrard:
There were various programs to help low income and minority communities to have rooftop solar, to have more energy efficiency, other areas which would reduce fossil fuel use. A lot of those have been wiped out, although much of that is being challenged in court, and we don't yet know what the final outcome will be.
Dana Taylor:
Well, the big news last week was the repeal of the Endangerment Finding. Can you briefly give me a little context on what this finding is and how it came to be?
Michael Gerrard:
So, Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, the major federal law for cleaning up the air, which has been very successful for lots of different kinds of pollutants. But EPA under President George W. Bush was refusing to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. 2007, theU.S. Supreme Courtissued a landmark decision called Massachusetts v. EPA, that said that EPA did have the power to regulate greenhouse gases if they find that it poses an endangerment to public health and welfare. So, EPA under President Obama did issue this finding, this Endangerment Finding that greenhouse gases do endanger public health or welfare. That became the basis for lots of regulations issued under the Obama and Biden administrations, and now EPA under President Trump has canceled that.
Dana Taylor:
Michael, what's the Trump administration's main legal justification for these changes?
Michael Gerrard:
We used to think that they were going to argue that the science of climate change was too unsettled, but they seem to have dropped that argument, wisely. And instead, they're saying that the regulation of greenhouse gases is such a major thing with important political and economic significance, that EPA can't do it without explicit congressional authorization, even if the words of the Clean Air Act would seem that EPA could do that.
Another major argument is that the emissions of greenhouse gases from motor vehicles in the U.S. are such a small part of the global climate problem that it's not going to make any difference. Although in fact, if the U.S. transportation emissions were a country, it would be the sixth-largest greenhouse gas emitting country in the world.
Dana Taylor:
Across the U.S., there's quite a bit of other litigation happening at the state and local level in relation to global warming and climate change. We spoke with some youth activists in Montana a couple of years ago who sued the Bureau of Land Management and won in order to curtail that state's oil and gas leasing process. Broadly speaking, Michael, are these cases proving successful in supporting efforts to fight climate change? And if so, how?
Michael Gerrard:
Advertisement
Well, some of them are. Montana has in its state constitution an environmental rights provision. And that led to an important trial a couple of years ago saying that the state was violating its state constitution by ignoring climate change. Hawaii has a similar provision, and there was a settlement in a lawsuit last year in which Hawaii agreed to clean up its transportation system. New York and Pennsylvania also have similar laws, and those are now being litigated.
In addition, there are about two dozen lawsuits around the country brought by states and cities against the fossil fuel companies, seeking money damages for climate change. Those have been going on for almost 20 years. We don't have final decisions yet. We'll see what happens in those.
Dana Taylor:
And how are environmental activists responding?
Michael Gerrard:
Well, environmental advocates are obviously outraged, and we're soon going to see lawsuits in the Federal Circuit Court in D.C. challenging this action by the Endangerment Finding. That'll probably make its way to the Supreme Court, and we'll see what happens there. But meanwhile, there's activity in a lot of the states. The states continue to have the power to regulate greenhouse gases, not from motor vehicles, that's preempted, but in stationary sources, lots of other things, states still have the power, and many states are using that power to regulate their emissions and to encourage more renewable energy.
Dana Taylor:
What is the scientific community saying about climate change and the regulation of greenhouse gases today? And has that changed significantly from what they were saying 2030 years ago?
Michael Gerrard:
Well, in 2019, when the Endangerment Finding was first issued, there was a ton of scientific evidence that fossil fuels were the principal cause of climate change, and that climate change was having terrible problems. There's now 10 tons of evidence showing that. The Trump administration did bring in a group of six well-known contrarian scientists to issue a report saying climate change isn't so bad. A recent federal court decision said that committee was illegally formed. And many scientists, including a group put together by the National Academies of Science, wrote a devastating report attacking that Trump administration study. So, the scientific consensus is very clear that climate change is happening, will have terrible impacts, and it's mostly from fossil fuel combustion.
Dana Taylor:
And can you help me get some perspective on how the U.S. compares with the rest of the world on efforts to fight climate change?
Michael Gerrard:
The U.S. had been a leader in the effort, and under President Obama played a major role in the Paris Agreement, a big international agreement reached in 2015. But President Trump withdrew us from the Paris Climate Agreement in his first term, Biden put us back, Trump has drawn us again. So the U.S. is now not only no longer leading the effort, but it's leading the effort in the other direction. It's pushing back, and trying to inhibit other countries from acting on climate change.
Dana Taylor:
The next UN Climate Change Conference will be in Turkey this November. Where do we leave off with the last conference, COP 30? And what's the realistic expectation for this coming one?
Michael Gerrard:
In the last conference, which was held in Brazil, the U.S. joined with Saudi Arabia and Russia and some other countries to try to slow down action on climate change, and I think they'll do that again. So, much of the rest of the world led by Europe is going forward, but the U.S. is going in the opposite direction.
Dana Taylor:
Finally, with regards to the legal status of all these climate change related lawsuits we've discussed today, what keeps you up at night, Michael? And what gives you the most hope?
Michael Gerrard:
So, the world is on track to be much hotter than the scientists say we need to be, in order to avoid catastrophic impacts of climate change. We really need to hasten the transition away from fossil fuels toward cleaner energy. And the most encouraging thing to me is the growth of technological progress. Solar, and wind, and batteries, are becoming much more effective, much cheaper. They are really helping to transform the global energy system. There's also a lot of technological development with nuclear, and we're hoping that these technologies will get to the point of commercialization where we have abundant safe electricity that all of us can use.
Dana Taylor:
Michael, thank you again for joining me on The Excerpt. It's good to speak to you.
Michael Gerrard:
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our senior producer, Kaely Monahan, for her production assistant. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts at usatoday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA TODAY's The Excerpt.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:In Trump's America, greenhouse gas emitters can go crazy | The Excerpt