White House budget officials leaned on EPA to broaden its rollback of tailpipe regulations as it sought this summer to repeal a foundational EPA policy that undergirds most federal climate rules, including those for cars and trucks.
Rather than just eliminate regulations for climate-warming pollutants such as carbon dioxide, documents show that the White House Office of Management and Budget pushed EPA to weaken limits on other types of vehicular pollution including soot and smog-forming compounds.
EPA resisted the suggestion from the Office of Management and Budget, but the exchange — made public after the proposed rollback was published in July — underscores the Trump administration’s desire to pare back federal regulations, especially those related to the environment and climate change.
The discussion played out in editing remarks as OMB staffers reviewed EPA plans to repeal the endangerment finding — a 2009 decree that gives EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases in the name of protecting public health. EPA has held a public hearing on the rollback proposal and is now reviewing written comments ahead of issuing a final regulation as soon as the end of this year.
The plan to roll back the endangerment finding is closely tied to EPA’s regulations of automotive pollution. The current EPA says the Obama-era EPA lacked legal authority to promulgate the endangerment finding in 2009 under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act.
EPA uses car and truck regulations that were finalized in 2024 under the Biden administration to combat both greenhouse gases and so-called criteria pollutants such as smog and soot. As the Trump-era EPA has sought to roll back the rules, the Office of Management and Budget — which typically reviews federal regulations — has urged EPA to weaken the rules for those pollutants while it addresses climate emissions.
“Didn’t the 2024 final rule also set some of the emissions standards for criteria pollutants at levels so stringent as to compound the pressure on the automakers to convert much of their production to EVs?” an OMB staffer wrote in the margin of the proposal. “If that’s correct, I would urge EPA to take separate action apart from this [notice of proposed rulemaking] to reconsider and replace those criteria pollutant emissions standards as well.”
An unidentified EPA staffer responded in the same exchange and said that the agency “is not planning on using this proposed rulemaking to announce a new regulatory action to reconsider the light and medium-duty vehicle criteria pollutant standards.”
The names of the OMB and EPA staffers weren’t available in the document. Neither OMB nor EPA responded to requests from POLITICO’s E&E News for comment.
Though OMB and EPA may have disagreed on the White House’s desire to use the endangerment finding rollback to target other tailpipe regulations, White House officials cheered some of EPA’s arguments related to the 2009 decree.
The document showed that OMB applauded EPA’s assertion that regulating pollution from transportation drives up the cost of vehicles and endangers safety because it forces people to keep driving older cars and trucks.
“This point is strong and important to emphasize,” OMB noted in the document.
Later in the document, OMB used the same logic to argue that promoting electric vehicles would lead to more pollution.
“The only way to reduce or eliminate CO2 emissions from new vehicles is to have consumers buy an entirely different substitute type of vehicle with an EV or hybrid EV drivetrain, and the higher cost of this alternative drivetrain technology will lead many consumers to choose to keep driving older and older used ICE [internal combustion engine] vehicles, with all the negative environmental effects that would result,” an OMB staffer wrote.
The attacks are similar to arguments in Project 2025, a conservative policy playbook that was developed by the Heritage Foundation. It has served as a blueprint for much of President Donald Trump’s second term.
OMB Director Russ Vought helped write Project 2025 before taking over as head of the powerful White House budget shop, where he has advocated for expanded presidential power and helped quarterback layoffs at government agencies.
Environmentalists have described EPA’s proposed rollback of climate regulations as “shameful.” They’ve noted the proposal relies on an Energy Department report that was written by climate contrarians handpicked by Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
Some states are worried that weakening or eliminating greenhouse gas regulations will make it harder for them to cut other forms of pollution. The auto industry also has fretted that rolling back the endangerment finding won’t stand up in court.
