Lansing, Michigan – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has strongly condemned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ultimate decision to remove the 2009 Endangerment Finding.
This scientific finding said that greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks make air pollution and climate change worse. Her answer comes after the federal agency got rid of a key directive that had set nationwide limits on vehicle-related pollutants that posed threats to public health for many years.
Nessel said that the rescission was a disturbing break from recognized science and the law.
“With this disappointing rescission, the federal government is ignoring its own scientific findings and abandoning its clear responsibility to address greenhouse gas pollution,” said Attorney General Nessel.
“By walking away from that duty, it is putting the physical safety and economic well-being of our communities and residents at very real risk. In rushing to finalize a rule that is legally flawed, scientifically indefensible, and defies common sense, the EPA has strayed from its mission to protect the public health and has now chosen to side with billion-dollar fossil fuel companies over the people it is meant to serve.”
The original Endangerment Finding emerged after the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, which affirmed the agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases that threaten health and welfare. After years of scientific study, the EPA decided in 2009 that car emissions are a major source of dangerous air pollution. This led to federal rules meant to reduce those emissions across the country.
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The agency’s change of heart now says that it doesn’t have the legal power to control greenhouse emissions, which the Supreme Court had previously said was wrong, and it also ignores long-standing scientific knowledge regarding the dangers of climate change.
The rule takes away current as well as potential federal emission standards for automobiles and trucks, which effectively destroys a significant framework meant to protect the public from harm to the environment.
Nessel had previously questioned the plan months before. In August 2025, she spoke in front of the EPA and said that the planned repeal was based on bad information and didn’t take into account how climate change affects the real world.
Later that year, she joined a group of attorneys general, counties, and cities that told the agency to stop what it was doing because it goes against settled law, puts disadvantaged communities at danger, and might cause major changes to environmental regulation and public investment.