Trump Just Pulled the Legal Pin on Federal Climate Rules — What That Means for California
Jon Fleischman takes a deeper dive in his fourth column for the new California Post.
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Unwinding An Unconstitutional Regulation
If you care about affordability in California — and you should — what happened in Washington on Thursday matters more than most people realize.
The Trump EPA formally began rescinding the 2009 “endangerment finding” — the legal lynchpin that allowed federal regulators to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
Most Californians have never heard of it.
But they’ve paid for it.
The Legal Foundation Behind Federal Climate Policy
That single administrative determination became the backbone of nearly every major federal climate regulation for the past decade and a half. Vehicle mandates, power-plant rules, methane regulations, appliance standards — compliance regimes that shape how Americans drive, heat their homes, and power their businesses all trace back to that one bureaucratic declaration.
Now that foundation is being challenged.
Environmental groups are preparing lawsuits. Former President Obama is publicly objecting. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is calling it the largest deregulatory action in American history. This is a big deal for the country.
Why This Matters More in California
And here’s where it hits home.
California didn’t just follow the federal climate framework. It escalated it. Sacramento layered its own mandates, cap-and-trade system, building codes, and carbon programs on top of the federal model — building an entire political and fiscal ecosystem around climate regulation.
If the federal legal cornerstone moves, the entire structure shifts.
Authority, Cost, and Affordability
This isn’t about partisan applause lines. It’s about authority, cost, and who gets to write economy-wide rules that affect the price of gasoline, electricity, vehicles, and housing. In a state already struggling with affordability and population out-migration, that question isn’t abstract — it’s immediate.
In my latest column for the California Post, I walk through what the “endangerment finding” actually is, why rescinding it is so consequential, and why this federal move could hit California harder than Sacramento wants to admit.
Read the full column here.