Featured

Trump: Iran asked me to be Supreme Leader, but I said no thanks

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Featured

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Buried.News

The stories buried under the noise

Primary focus

Trump fires Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary

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Featured

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Featured

White House Confronted Over Huge Bets Made Minutes Before Trump’s Big War Move

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24 States Sue E.P.A. Over Climate Change Decision

Two dozen states are asking a federal appeals court to restore the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” a legal keystone for U.S. climate rules that the Trump administration moved to rescind.

Judiciary

Mar 19, 2026

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/climate/epa-endangerment-states-lawsuit.html

Summary

A coalition of states and local governments sued the EPA in the D.C. Circuit over the agency’s rescission of the 2009 greenhouse-gas endangerment finding and related vehicle rules. The core risk is that the fight can be misread as a symbolic climate dispute, when it is actually about whether EPA retains Clean Air Act authority to regulate greenhouse gases at all. The outcome could determine the durability of federal climate regulation across transportation and other major emitting sectors.

Reality Check

This lawsuit is less about whether climate change is real and more about whether EPA can keep using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases—especially from vehicles—because the 2009 endangerment finding has been treated as the legal gateway for those rules. ([epa.gov](https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/final-rule-rescission-greenhouse-gas-endangerment)) EPA’s rescission and vehicle-standard repeal were formal rulemaking actions in early 2026, which makes the case a conventional (but high-stakes) administrative-law fight in the D.C. Circuit about the legality of undoing a foundational finding and its downstream regulations. ([federalregister.gov](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/02/18/2026-03157/rescission-of-the-greenhouse-gas-endangerment-finding-and-motor-vehicle-greenhouse-gas-emission))

Detail

A coalition of 24 states, joined by additional cities and counties, filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging EPA’s rescission of the 2009 greenhouse-gas “endangerment finding.” ([nytimes.com](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/climate/epa-endangerment-states-lawsuit.html)) The 2009 endangerment finding concluded that greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide) threaten public health and welfare, and it has functioned as a prerequisite for regulating GHG emissions from new motor vehicles under Clean Air Act Section 202. ([epa.gov](https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/final-rule-rescission-greenhouse-gas-endangerment)) EPA’s February 2026 action also repealed greenhouse-gas emission standards for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles and engines, according to the Federal Register summary of the rule. ([federalregister.gov](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/02/18/2026-03157/rescission-of-the-greenhouse-gas-endangerment-finding-and-motor-vehicle-greenhouse-gas-emission)) The states’ suit is expected to be consolidated or coordinated with a separate challenge brought earlier by public health and environmental groups (described by multiple outlets as the first major challenge to the repeal). ([abcnews.com](https://abcnews.com/Politics/wireStory/dozen-states-10-cities-sue-epa-repeal-endangerment-131230450)) The legal backdrop includes Massachusetts v. EPA (2007), where the Supreme Court held greenhouse gases can qualify as “air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act, enabling EPA regulation when statutory criteria are met. ([law.cornell.edu](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-1120.ZS.html)) What’s not resolved by the initial coverage: the administration’s legal theory for rescinding the finding (e.g., statutory interpretation vs. evidentiary/scientific arguments) and how the court treats agency reversals under administrative law standards. ([federalregister.gov](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/02/18/2026-03157/rescission-of-the-greenhouse-gas-endangerment-finding-and-motor-vehicle-greenhouse-gas-emission))

Norms Impact

EPA reverses long-standing climate change finding, stripping its own ability to regulate emissions

By rescinding the endangerment finding, the executive branch dismantles the legal trigger for Clean Air Act climate protections and rewrites national policy by administrative erasure rather than durable law.

Executive

Feb 12, 2026

⚖ Legal Exposure

Ethics Violation

Likely Unlawful

Potentially Criminal

Likely Criminal

The primary exposure reflected here is civil: a high-risk APA vulnerability from an abrupt reversal of a major scientific/legal finding, potentially on a compressed timeline and contested evidentiary basis. The article alleges deregulatory benefit to industry, but it does not describe any payments, personal enrichment, or access-for-action exchange that would support bribery or honest-services theories on these facts. Accordingly, this is best characterized as a serious investigative red flag/procedural legality issue rather than proven transactional corruption.

Sources

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/climate-change/epa-reverses-endangerment-climate-change-finding-rcna258452

Summary

President Donald Trump announced that the Environmental Protection Agency is rescinding the 2009 “endangerment finding” that declared greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act. The move strips the EPA of the legal foundation it has relied on for nearly two decades to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power plants, and other major sources. In practical terms, it upends most U.S. climate policies, invites years of litigation, and removes federal emissions standards for vehicles while leaving conventional air pollutants subject to regulation.

Reality Check

This conduct threatens our rights by using executive power to nullify the government’s own scientific and legal predicate for protecting public health, inviting a precedent where core safeguards can be revoked on assertion rather than evidence. The most immediate legal vulnerability is not a clean fit for federal criminal law, but a high-probability violation of administrative law: if the repeal is arbitrary and capricious, inadequately reasoned, or procedurally defective, it is exposed under the Administrative Procedure Act and constrained by the Supreme Court’s 2007 Clean Air Act precedent recognizing EPA authority over greenhouse gases. What should alarm us is the institutional damage: eroding evidence-based rulemaking, destabilizing reliance interests built over nearly two decades, and forcing national climate governance into years of litigation while protections are rolled back in the meantime.

Legal Summary

Legal Analysis

5 U.S.C. § 706(2) (APA) — Arbitrary/capricious reversal; required reasoned explanation

The EPA rescinded a long-standing (2009) “endangerment finding” that underpinned broad climate regulation; a stark agency reversal triggers heightened need for a reasoned explanation and robust administrative record.
Article context indicates the administration’s rationale (e.g., claimed overstatement of risks, discounted CO₂ benefits) is disputed by independent scientific bodies; if the final rule lacks adequate evidentiary support or fails to grapple with contrary evidence, it raises substantial APA vulnerability.
Timeline/procedure concerns: counsel noted such a rule typically takes ~3 years but was completed in ~1 year; if notice-and-comment, record development, or required findings were truncated, this strengthens an APA-process challenge (civil invalidation exposure, not criminal).

18 U.S.C. § 371 — Conspiracy to defraud the United States (Klein conspiracy) (gap: no corrupt agreement alleged)

While opponents characterize the repeal as a “gift” to the fossil fuel industry, the article provides no facts of an agreement, covert coordination, or deception of a federal function; absent such allegations, criminal exposure under § 371 is not supported on this record.

18 U.S.C. § 201 (Bribery) / 18 U.S.C. § 666 (Federal funds bribery) / Honest-services fraud (18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, 1346) — (gap: no money/access/official-act linkage alleged)

The article alleges major deregulatory action benefiting industry generally, but includes no factual allegations of payments, gifts, personal enrichment, or specific access exchanged for the official action.
Without a money-to-official-action linkage or personal benefit to a decisionmaker, the structural quid-pro-quo pattern necessary for prosecutable public-corruption charges is not present in the provided context.

Conclusion: The article supports significant civil/administrative-law exposure (APA vulnerability) and political/procedural irregularity concerns, but does not provide facts indicating a prosecutable structural corruption or bribery scheme.

Media

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Detail

President Donald Trump announced at a Thursday news conference that the Environmental Protection Agency will repeal the 2009 “endangerment finding,” the determination that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane endanger the health and welfare of current and future generations. Trump said the finding had “no basis in fact” and “no basis in law.”

The endangerment finding has served as the key legal predicate for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, including setting standards for vehicles and power plants and requiring emissions reporting. Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin also announced the removal of all greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles, while stating the EPA will continue regulating non-greenhouse tailpipe pollutants such as carbon monoxide, lead, and ozone.

The Supreme Court’s 2007 decision recognized EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases and noted climate harms as “serious and well recognized,” which preceded the 2009 finding. Environmental and public health organizations, including the American Lung Association and the American Public Health Association, said they intend to sue. As of 4 p.m. ET Thursday, the EPA had not published the final text of the rule.