The Trump administration has revoked one of the most consequential regulatory determinations of the modern administrative state: the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding.” That ruling declared carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to be pollutants—and threats to public health and welfare—under the Clean Air Act.

From that single determination flowed a wide range of intrusive federal actions, ostensibly aimed at mitigating the danger: the widespread closure of fossil-fueled power plants, the phaseout of the internal combustion engine, and a forced shift to so-called “clean” energy sources like wind and solar. The practical effect was to place federal regulators at the center of the nation’s energy economy.

Critics have long argued that the deeper aim was control—control over the energy modern societies need to prosper, the ultimate lever of production itself. By repealing what many regard as a spurious endangerment finding, the Trump administration has reopened the door to a more sensible energy policy.

The roots of this fight stretch back to Massachusetts v. EPA (2007). In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court held that greenhouse gases fall within the Clean Air Act’s broad definition of “air pollutant.” The Clean Air Act, first enacted in 1963 and expanded in 1970 to address hazardous urban air pollution, was designed to combat smog and soot—not to function as a national thermostat. Still, the Court required the EPA to determine whether emissions from new motor vehicles “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” If yes, regulation would follow.

In 2009, the EPA answered yes.

Under climate-activist-in-chief Lisa Jackson, the agency concluded that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare because of their contribution to climate change. That determination unlocked sweeping regulatory authority under a statute written decades before climate modeling became central to federal policy. The Obama administration—and before that, former Vice President Al Gore—framed the move as a long-overdue, science-driven correction. But it converted a public health statute into a climate policy machine without Congress ever rewriting a word of it.

The classification has long struck skeptics as conceptually strained. Carbon dioxide, of course, is not toxic; it is a naturally occurring gas essential to plant life—and to every breath you are currently taking. The EPA’s theory of harm rested not on direct toxicity but on projected climatic effects derived from modeling. That interpretive leap reshaped American energy policy—and academic priorities—for more than a decade.

The downstream effects have been costly. Vehicle greenhouse gas standards, for example, are estimated to have added hundreds—and in some cases thousands—of dollars to the price of a new car, worsening an affordability crisis that has hit younger Americans and Americans in lower socioeconomic classes the hardest. Rarely was the question considered: How do high energy prices and mandates for expensive vehicles help the poor? Climate policy became one of the cruelest regressive tax systems in history.

But the burden has not stopped at the showroom. Over the past two decades, the federal government layered regulatory constraints onto its own energy and manufacturing sectors in the name of climate leadership, while competitors—most notably China—expanded production, scaled up heavy industry, and strengthened their economic position. The result has been an erosion of America’s industrial edge, even as global emissions continued to climb.

As for higher education, colleges and universities have positioned themselves as climate actors—pursuing federal research dollars, adopting decarbonization pledges, and competing for sustainability grants such as Second Nature’s “Catalyst Grants.” In 2023, I reported on California’s College Corps program, which offered $10,000 stipends—including for “climate action” service—illustrating how regulatory priorities, public funding, and campus activism increasingly converge.

The revocation of the endangerment finding will almost certainly face legal challenges. But whatever the courts decide, the episode reopens serious questions about statutory interpretation, scientific authority, economic tradeoffs, and the role universities play in reinforcing—or scrutinizing—climate orthodoxy.

At Minding the Campus, we will be examining those questions in the weeks ahead. After all, higher education is inseparable from science—and from how science is invoked.

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