Tyson Fisher
It’s official. The Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn the 2009 endangerment finding, dismantling nearly 20 years of vehicle emission regulations. What does this mean for trucking, and where do we go from here?
On Thursday, Feb. 12, President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced a final rule that invalidates a single document on which some of the most sweeping vehicle emission regulations have hinged since 2010. Zeldin called the move the “single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history.”
“The Endangerment Finding has been the source of 16 years of consumer choice restrictions and trillions of dollars in hidden costs for Americans,” Zeldin said in a statement. “Referred to by some as the ‘Holy Grail’ of the ‘climate change religion,’ the Endangerment Finding is now eliminated. The Trump EPA is strictly following the letter of the law, returning commonsense to policy, delivering consumer choice to Americans and advancing the American Dream.”
By rescinding the endangerment finding, all federal greenhouse gas vehicle and engine emission standards for model years dating back to 2012 to present day and beyond are eliminated. It also eliminates the start-stop feature in many newer vehicles.
Trucking industry stakeholders applauded the final rule. Last August, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association told the EPA that withdrawing the endangerment finding puts trucking “back on track.”
On Thursday, OOIDA President Todd Spencer commended Lee on his “more feasible approach to emissions regulations.”
“Small-business truckers make up 96% of the trucking industry, and prior EPA greenhouse gas rules threatened to regulate many of them out of existence,” Spencer said. “Electric commercial trucks remain prohibitively expensive and impractical for small carriers due to the upfront cost, reliability concerns, and lack of charging infrastructure. Equipment affordability and uptime are essential to keeping small trucking businesses operational.”
Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) CEO Mike Spagnola called the final rule “tremendous” that will “return sanity to our nation’s environmental policies.”
“It was with great trepidation that SEMA watched our nation’s leaders demonize and ban the very motor vehicles that serve as the bedrock upon which the American people – families, small businesses, and automotive enthusiasts – rely to live their best, most prosperous lives,” Spagnola said. “It was even more infuriating to watch these policymakers brazenly justify their actions with a dubious policy position that now rightly goes away, to be replaced with a common-sense, free-market view of what drives our nation’s prosperity.”
While trucking and vehicle stakeholders take a victory lap, how withdrawing the endangerment finding will reshape the future of vehicles remains uncertain. Additionally, it does not do what many think it does for trucking emissions.
Endangerment Finding 101
To understand the effect of the EPA’s final rule, it is important to understand the endangerment finding.
Back in 1999, environmental groups asked the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles under the Clean Air Act. In 2003, the EPA denied the request, stating it had no authority to do so. That prompted legal challenges.
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled greenhouse gases count as “air pollutants” under that law. That meant EPA could regulate them, but only after answering one key question: Do these gases endanger public health and welfare?
EPA’s answer was the “endangerment finding,” finalized in December 2009. It became the legal trigger for later vehicle greenhouse gas rules. The finding was challenged in court, but a federal appeals court upheld it in 2012, and it stuck.
What does withdrawing the endangerment finding do?
The EPA’s final rule invalidates some big-ticket vehicle emission rules, but not all of them, and challenges are sure to come.
Perhaps the biggest rule on the chopping block is the “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles – Phases 3,” which applies to model years 2027-32. That rule would effectively require 25% of all sleeper cab tractors to be zero-direct-emission by 2032. It is unclear how withdrawing the endangerment finding will affect truck manufacturers’ designs going forward. Model year 2027 vehicles will likely come out in the second half of this year.
Those rules and their passenger-vehicle counterparts have been blamed for sharp increases in new-vehicle prices. Since the 1990s, the consumer price index for new vehicles hovered around 145. After 2021, the index skyrocketed to nearly 180.
According to the EPA, eliminating the endangerment finding will save taxpayers more than $1.3 trillion in regulatory compliance costs. Motorists will save $2,400 on average per vehicle. The EPA also claims the new rule will “lower the cost of living on all products by making trucks cheaper.”
What the final rule does NOT do
It is worth noting that the endangerment finding paved the way for regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. Vehicle emission regulations that do not deal with greenhouse gases are not affected by the finding.
That includes rules requiring diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) and diesel particulate filters (DPF). Those regulations deal with particulate matter, not greenhouse gases, and predate the endangerment finding.
Although withdrawing the endangerment finding will have no effect on DEF, the EPA has already made moves addressing the issue.
Earlier this month, the EPA demanded information about DEF failures from manufacturers, setting the stage to roll back rules from model year 2027 and newer trucks. That follows guidance issued last year that relaxed DEF derating schedules. In January, the Department of Justice said it will no longer seek criminal charges in DEF/DPF tampering cases
OOIDA said it “will continue working with EPA to address other nonsensical rules requiring faulty DEF systems that have sidelined small-business truckers for too long.”
What’s next?
Rescinding the endangerment finding will likely face legal challenges that will put manufacturers in limbo.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the state “will challenge this illegal action in court, and will continue fighting to defend public health, uphold environmental justice, and protect future generations.” More lawsuits will likely follow.
The endangerment finding has survived legal challenges, including in the D.C. Circuit Court. That decision partially relied on the Chevron doctrine. However, the Supreme Court struck down the Chevron doctrine in 2024, leaving the issue open for relitigation.
A courtroom battle will likely be lengthy, putting manufacturers between a rock and a hard place.
On the one hand, manufacturers are eager to produce vehicles that are divorced from current regulations. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents some of the largest automakers, criticized current rules.
“I’ve said it before: Automotive emissions regulations finalized in the previous administration are extremely challenging for automakers to achieve given the current marketplace demand for EVs,” Alliance for Automotive Innovation President John Bozzella said. “The auto industry in America remains focused on preserving vehicle choice for consumers, keeping the industry competitive, and staying on a long-term path of emissions reductions and cleaner vehicles.”
On the other hand, there is no guarantee that the EPA’s withdrawal of the endangerment finding will survive legal challenges. Given that designing and engineering new vehicles requires several years of planning, manufacturers risk gambling by designing future trucks that do not comply with Phase 3 rules. Losing that bet could cost billions of dollars.
