EPA rules greenhouse gases are no danger. What’s Wisconsin fallout?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s repeal Feb. 12 of the 2009 finding that greenhouse gases harm human health brings to fruition years of rejecting globally accepted science by climate change deniers.

It will hurt families, quality of life, and pocketbooks here in Wisconsin, environmental advocates say.

President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the repeal in a news release, with Trump saying the original finding “severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers.” Trump has long referred to climate change as a hoax, and ignored or dismissed decades of research.

Within the scientific community, there is no debate. More than 99% of scientists agreeing humans contribute greatly to climate change through fumes that come out of vehicle tailpipes, and by burning fossil fuels for electricty and heat.

With the fingerprints of climate change already visible in floods, heat waves and wildfire smoke events in Wisconsin, the state’s environmental groups say the repeal will be dangerous for residents’ health.

“The title of this rule says it for itself. It’s the endangerment finding,” said Abby Novinska-Lois, executive director of Healthy Climate Wisconsin, a group of Wisconsin doctors, nurses and health professionals that advocate for climate action. “That’s been in place because we know the science is clear that greenhouse gases harm public health and welfare.”

The rule protected Americans’ health, Novinska-Lois said, “and now, it’s gone.”

What is the endangerment finding?

The endangerment finding was issued in 2009 by the EPA under former President Barack Obama. It declared that six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, pollute the air and endanger public health.

Two years earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had rejected an argument from the EPA – then under former President George W. Bush – that the agency did not have the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases.

Since the endangerment finding was published, the EPA has used it to underpin regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants, and the oil and gas sector.

It has been challenged before by industry groups, but the Supreme Court has declined to hear those challenges.

What does the EPA’s repeal do?

The Feb. 12 announcement from Trump and the EPA immediately ends regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. vehicles. More broadly, it signals an intent to unwind regulations on other greenhouse gas emitters, like power plants, said Brian Lynk, senior attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center.

“They’re saying, ‘Well, what we found in 2009 and reaffirmed in 2023 and all those years of data in between – all that was wrong. We’ve decided this isn’t an issue,’” Lynk said.

The EPA proposed rescinding the endangerment finding in August 2025 because, it said, “developments cast significant doubt on the reliability of the findings.”

Although the proposal referred several more times to such developments, the science on climate change has not changed.

When news broke last summer that the EPA would try to rescind the finding, Gov. Tony Evers condemned the move from his role as co-chair of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of governors working on climate change issues.

Last September, a report from the independent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that evidence for the harm greenhouse gases cause to human health is “beyond scientific dispute.”

Effects of climate change would just get worse

Across the country, allowing unchecked greenhouse gas emissions could add up to 18 billion tons of pollution into the atmosphere by 2055, according to the environmental advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund – three times the amount the U.S. emitted last year.

It could lead to tens of thousands of premature deaths and tens of millions more asthma attacks, the group said.

Wisconsin and the Midwest will feel those impacts, experts said. The effects of climate change are already noticeable here: warmer winters, heavier precipitation and flooding, far-drifting smoke from wildfires that burn hotter, and weather that swings from one extreme to the next. That could all grow worse without limits on greenhouse gas emissions, Lynk said.

In addition to contributing to a warming planet, the repeal will also worsen everyday air quality, Novinska-Lois said.

Air pollution is linked to health problems across the lifespan, she said, from preterm birth to rampant asthma to certain cancers.

The Environmental Defense Fund estimated Wisconsin could see more than $5 billion in health costs through 2055 due to the repeal of vehicle greenhouse gas standards.

Despite the change, which was supported by groups like the American Petroleum Institute, Lynk said he doesn’t expect to see auto manufacturing companies race to release new cars that no longer have to meet emissions standards. Businesses take a longer view on their products than what happens in a presidential term, he said.

What happens next?

Lynk said he believes the administration’s end goal is for the endangerment finding to wind up back at the Supreme Court, which could then reverse its 2007 decision saying the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

The Environmental Law & Policy Center does intend to take the EPA to court over the repeal, he said.

Other environmental groups have also signaled they will sue.

Madeline Heim covers health and the environment for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at 920-996-7266 or mheim@gannett.com.