Chapter 1
The United States federal government has spent 2026 dismantling its…
The United States federal government has spent 2026 dismantling its rules on greenhouse-gas emissions and moving against state laws that try to make polluters pay for climate damage. Almost all of it is now in court, and none of it has yet been decided there.
Chapter 2
The foundation came first
The foundation came first. On 18 February the Environmental Protection Agency published its rescission of the 2009 endangerment finding — the determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, on which federal climate regulation had rested for sixteen years — and with it repealed every greenhouse-gas standard for cars, trucks and their engines. Its argument is legal rather than scientific: that the Clean Air Act's vehicle provisions were never meant to address global climate change, a question it says belongs to Congress. It dropped the challenge to climate science it had floated when proposing the change. By its own estimate the repeal adds 410 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent a year by 2055 while saving between $0.73 and $1.14 trillion in vehicle technology costs. The rule took effect on 20 April.
Chapter 3
Power plants followed
Power plants followed. On 14 September the agency finalised a rule removing most of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards — every limit on existing coal and gas-fired steam plants, and the carbon-capture standards for new base-load gas turbines — on the ground that capture and co-firing are not proven, affordable controls. It takes effect on 16 November and leaves the efficiency standards for new turbines in place. The same day the agency proposed scrapping those too, arguing that the Clean Air Act does not let it regulate power plants on climate grounds at all, the reasoning of the February rescission carried over. The agency projects $310 billion in savings and a more than tenfold rise in coal burned for power; every one of those figures is its own.
Chapter 4
The agency has also made claims that can be tested
The agency has also made claims that can be tested. Its administrator, Lee Zeldin, said Americans “will see a decrease in electricity prices”; the latest federal figure before he spoke, for July 2026, put the average retail price at 14.99 cents per kWh, up 4.4% on a year earlier. The agency said power-plant emissions have “no material impact on global climate change”, on the strength of its own modelling that they add 0.014°C to warming by 2050. Neither claim has been checked against independent evidence yet.
Chapter 5
Each step has been challenged in the federal appeals court in Washington
Each step has been challenged in the federal appeals court in Washington. Four petitions against the rescission — from 24 states with about a dozen cities and counties, 17 health and environmental groups, 18 young people and an electric-vehicle trade group — were filed between February and March. The power-plant repeal drew six health and environmental groups on 17 September and 26 petitioners led by New York, among them 21 states and three of the largest cities, on 1 October.
Chapter 6
The federal government has also gone after state climate law
The federal government has also gone after state climate law. New York's and Vermont's climate superfund acts charge fossil-fuel producers for a share of past emissions; New York's would raise $75 billion. Federal judges in two New York districts ruled on 31 August and 23 September that the Clean Air Act preempts New York's, and both held that the rescission of the endangerment finding changed nothing. The Justice Department's suit against Vermont's law, filed in May 2025 alongside New York's, was argued in March 2026 and awaits a ruling. How the courts treat the rescission is the question the rest of the federal programme rests on.
And now
The EPA has proposed cutting back the 2024 methane standards for oil and gas. It would scrap the super-emitter program, which lets certified third parties flag large leaks, let oil wells flare their gas instead of piping it to sale, and lighten the rules for low-producing wells. President Trump announced it on 27 October as a termination, but it is a proposal: the standards stay in force while comments run to 16 December. The agency projects 60 million more short tons of methane over 2027–2050, and oil and gas prices moving by a fraction of a percent. It rests on the Clean Air Act, not on February’s rescission of the endangerment finding.
The repeal of most power-plant carbon standards takes effect on 16 November, and comments on scrapping the rest close on 2 November. Challenges to both the repeal and the rescission sit undecided in the appeals court in Washington.
New York has appealed to the Second Circuit the two rulings that struck down its climate superfund law. In the Supreme Court, where the federal government argued on 5 October that federal law bars state climate suits, a ruling in Suncor v. Boulder County is expected by next summer.
Where it stands today →