For the past two decades, U.S. climate policy has been driven more by legal and administrative maneuvering than by legislative consensus. The result has been regulatory inefficiency, policy whiplash between administrations, and little progress toward a durable, politically sustainable framework for managing climate risk.

Despite its prominence in political discourse, climate change has been the focus of relatively little stand-alone legislation. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, passed through budget reconciliation, is the most significant federal climate law to date, but most of its green energy subsidies and targeted tax incentives have since been rolled back. Other major economy-wide climate proposals have failed in Congress, and most enacted measures have been modest provisions embedded within broader infrastructure or energy bills. 

Climate regulation, in contrast, has been much more active. Over the past two decades, federal agencies have issued an array of rules governing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from vehicles, power plants, and other sources. Many have been revised or repealed by subsequent administrations. Nearly all of this authority traces back to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2009 determination that GHGs endanger public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act.

This finding followed the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which rejected the Bush Administration’s claim that it did not have the authority to regulate GHGs and held that GHGs fit the Clean Air Act’s definition of “air pollutants.” The case required the EPA to determine whether GHGs endangered public health and welfare and, if so, to regulate them. In 2009, the Obama administration concluded that they did. The endangerment finding set in motion subsequent regulation of GHGs under the Clean Air Act.

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Given this significance, the endangerment finding has been contested ever since. It was quickly made clear that repealing it would be a priority of the second Trump administration, and the EPA has now finalized its decision to rescind the finding. Environmental groups have already filed a lawsuit, ensuring that the legal battle will continue.

Yet from a political economy perspective, the legal and scientific disputes are secondary. For many policymakers and commentators, views about the validity of the endangerment finding tend to track prior beliefs about the severity of climate change and the appropriate policy response. The finding itself is a symptom of both those underlying disagreements and Congress’s inability or unwillingness to resolve them through legislation. Without a comprehensive climate law, the issue shifted to existing statutory authority and the courts. 

The debate has therefore unfolded in legal and scientific terms because those are the channels available within the current framework. But repealing the finding does not resolve the deeper differences in values and priorities that shape conflicting views of climate change. Even when looking at the same evidence, reasonable people can disagree about how severe climate change will be, how much present-day cost is justified to reduce future risks, and how expansive the federal government’s role should be. Absent a broader shift in political incentives or a willingness to compromise, long-term policy outcomes are unlikely to change. Democratic administrations will continue to pursue aggressive climate policies where they can; Republican administrations will continue to constrain and dismantle them.

In the meantime, however, this cycle has real costs. The Clean Air Act was designed to address local, conventional air pollutants with characteristics that differ substantially from those of global GHGs. This mismatch means that climate regulations within the current statutory framework have imposed significant costs to energy consumers, the broader economy and created economic inefficiencies while delivering limited net climate benefits. Moreover, relying on legal and administrative avenues to implement climate policy makes those policies highly susceptible to shifts in political leadership, allowing them to be repealed almost as easily as they are enacted. The result is substantial regulatory uncertainty, which discourages long-term investment and complicates economic planning. 

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These consequences should serve as a cautionary tale for both supporters and opponents of the endangerment finding. The finding emerged as a workaround to legislative impasse, stretching existing law to address a new and complex problem. That strategy has contributed to regulatory instability and political polarization over climate policy. But repeal does not solve the underlying problems. As easily as one administration can determine that GHGs do not endanger public health and welfare, the next can conclude the opposite. As legal scholar Jonathan Adler has noted, if the Trump administration truly seeks to remove the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, it will ultimately require Congress to reform the underlying statutory framework.

More broadly, until Congress confronts climate policy directly, the fight over the endangerment finding, or something like it, will persist. Even if some degree of legislative compromise were possible, disagreements over the proper scope of climate policy will remain. But comprehensive legislation might at least reduce the regulatory inefficiency and uncertainty that stem from repurposing existing laws and relying solely on executive action.  

A legislative breakthrough is probably unrealistic in the near term. In the meantime, policymakers would be better served pursuing incremental improvements in energy and environmental policy, such as reforming permitting processes or advancing policies that spur technological innovation to promote energy abundance and mitigate and adapt to climate risks.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.