President Donald Trump is right: greenhouse gases are not dangerous to human health. That reality underscores why former President Barack Obama’s “endangerment finding,” which enabled the regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act of 1970, was misguided and constitutionally suspect.
Congress writes the laws. The president executes them. If Congress had intended to regulate greenhouse gases when it passed the Clean Air Act, it would have said so explicitly. Instead, the statute focused on substances that directly harm human health.
The Clean Air Act identifies six common pollutants: ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, and lead. Each of these pollutants has a direct and measurable impact on human health. The law was designed to address smog, toxic emissions, and airborne contaminants that people breathe and that cause immediate physical harm.
Greenhouse gases are fundamentally different. They do not directly harm human health. In fact, they are necessary for life on Earth. Without greenhouse gases, the planet’s average temperature would fall to roughly 1 degree Fahrenheit, making Earth largely uninhabitable. Carbon dioxide is essential to plant photosynthesis, supporting agriculture and global food production. Humans themselves exhale carbon dioxide with every breath. It is implausible to argue that Congress intended a law designed to regulate toxic air pollution to extend to a gas produced naturally by human respiration.
For these reasons, the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases, was wrongly decided. The ruling effectively allowed an administrative agency to expand its own authority beyond what Congress clearly intended. The economic consequences of that decision have been substantial. Whether greenhouse gases should be regulated as pollutants is a “major question” of national policy that should be decided by Congress through clear statutory language, not by regulatory interpretation.
Without Trump’s decision to reverse the endangerment finding, projections suggest the average U.S. household could lose nearly $42,000 in economic value by 2050 due to regulatory costs and reduced economic growth. The repeal will almost certainly be challenged in federal court and may ultimately return to the Supreme Court. The original Massachusetts v. EPA decision was decided by a narrow 5–4 margin. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Antonin Scalia dissented.
Since that ruling nearly two decades ago, the court has become more skeptical of broad administrative power and more attentive to the Constitution’s separation of powers. Recent jurisprudence reflects a renewed emphasis on the principle that Congress legislates and executive agencies cannot create sweeping regulatory regimes without explicit authorization.
The economic benefits of reversing the endangerment finding could be significant. The EPA estimates that eliminating greenhouse-gas mandates for vehicles could save the public more than $1.3 trillion in total costs. New car and truck prices could fall by roughly $2,400 per vehicle by removing compliance requirements and unpopular features such as automatic start-stop systems.
Lower manufacturing costs would ripple through the economy, reducing the price of consumer goods and supporting industrial growth. The policy shift also advances energy abundance, a prerequisite for a manufacturing renaissance in the United States. The president’s Council of Economic Advisers estimates that broad deregulation could boost annual economic growth by between 0.29% and 0.78% over two decades while reducing inflation by as much as 0.60% annually.
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The global context makes the decision even more consequential. In the years since Massachusetts v. EPA, China has built hundreds of coal-fired power plants and leveraged inexpensive energy to become the world’s dominant manufacturing power. Beijing now uses that economic strength to challenge the U.S. and its allies.
Restoring U.S. energy competitiveness is therefore both an economic and national security priority. Trump’s decision on greenhouse gases represents another step toward rebuilding U.S. manufacturing strength and economic resilience.
James Rogan is a former U.S. foreign service officer who later worked in law and finance for 30 years. Today, he writes a daily note on markets, economics, politics, and social issues.
