Texas Group Moves to Defend EPA Rollback in Major Climate Rule Fight
TPPF wants in on the Endangerment Finding lawsuit as the EPA says its rollback could save Americans $1.3 trillion and cut new vehicle prices. #Texas
Texas Public Policy Foundation is stepping into one of the biggest regulatory fights in the country, and the stakes are not exactly small. The group filed a motion to intervene in the D.C. Circuit case over the EPA's rescission of the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which the agency has described as the largest deregulatory action in American history.
If that sounds like dry regulatory soup, here is the plain-English version: this is a battle over whether unelected bureaucrats get to keep using a 2009 finding to regulate carbon dioxide across huge chunks of the American economy, including cars and trucks. TPPF and the coalition it represents want to help defend the rollback and push arguments the EPA itself chose not to press.
What TPPF Is Actually Doing
According to TPPF, the groups seeking to intervene are the Western States Trucking Association, the Construction Industry Air Quality Coalition, Liberty Packing Company, and Merit Oil Company. Their argument is simple. If the EPA has finally pulled back a sweeping regulatory regime, those directly affected by it should have a seat at the table when left-wing states and advocacy groups rush to court to stop the rollback.
The EPA's February final rule rescinded the 2009 greenhouse gas Endangerment Finding and the vehicle emissions standards built on top of it. The agency said the move would save Americans more than $1.3 trillion and reduce the price of a new vehicle by an average of $2,400.
That is not pocket change. That is the kind of number that hits families, truckers, small businesses, and anyone wondering why every new rule somehow ends up making basic life more expensive.
Why the 2009 Finding Matters So Much
The 2009 Endangerment Finding became the legal lever for the federal government's greenhouse gas regime under the Clean Air Act. Once that finding was in place, EPA could argue that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could be treated as pollutants under the statute for purposes of motor vehicle regulation.
TPPF's filing argues that this decision handed the agency power over what one of its attorneys called "virtually every nook and cranny of the nation's economy." That is the kind of phrase people use when they are not talking about a narrow rule dispute. They are talking about an administrative state power grab.
The coalition's core arguments
The 2009 Endangerment Finding should be set aside because EPA allegedly failed to share the proposal with its Science Advisory Board
The Clean Air Act is being stretched beyond its best reading to cover greenhouse gases in ways Congress never clearly authorized
The Supreme Court's older Massachusetts v. EPA precedent should be revisited
More recent Supreme Court cases have narrowed agencies' ability to make major policy on their own
And that is where this gets interesting.
The Legal Angle the EPA Did Not Fully Press
TPPF says its coalition is not just defending the rescission in broad terms. It is also advancing arguments that EPA declined to make. One of those arguments is that the original 2009 Endangerment Finding was unlawful because the agency did not submit the proposal to its Science Advisory Board.
Another is that Massachusetts v. EPA should be overturned or at least sharply limited. That 2007 Supreme Court ruling opened the door to greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act. TPPF argues that later cases, including Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and West Virginia v. EPA, make that older framework look a whole lot shakier than climate regulators would like to admit.
"By making the Endangerment Finding in 2009, EPA impermissibly arrogated to itself enormous powers over virtually every nook and cranny of the nation's economy in an effort to regulate carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous natural substance essential to life on Earth," TPPF Senior Attorney Ted Hadzi-Antich said.
"Rescinding the Endangerment Finding provides the Supreme Court a perfect opportunity to revisit erroneous precedent," TPPF attorney Eric Heigis said.
That is not cautious bureaucrat language. That is a direct invitation for the courts to take another look at one of the foundational climate rulings of the last two decades.
Why Conservatives Are Watching This Case Closely
This fight is bigger than one rule. It is about whether agencies can keep discovering massive new powers in old statutes whenever Congress will not vote for the policy they want.
For grassroots conservatives, the issue is familiar:
Bureaucrats expand their authority
Consumers pay more
Industry gets squeezed
Courts are asked to clean up the mess years later
Because of course it was set up that way.
The EPA's own final rule framed the rescission as both a legal correction and an economic relief measure. The agency said the rollback would lower costs and unwind standards that had driven up vehicle prices. TPPF's coalition wants to make sure that rollback survives in court and, if possible, goes even further by challenging the legal foundation beneath the whole regime.
What Comes Next
The immediate question is whether the D.C. Circuit will allow the coalition to intervene. If it does, the court will hear from parties that say they were directly burdened by the prior regime and that the government should not have the last word on how aggressively to defend the rollback.
The bigger question is whether this case becomes the vehicle for the Supreme Court to revisit how far the Clean Air Act can be stretched. If that happens, the Endangerment Finding may turn from untouchable climate dogma into something judges finally scrutinize like any other agency action.