Trump administration eliminates greenhouse gas regulations
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2026
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, climate correspondent Jeff Brady, and political correspondent Ashley Lopez.
This podcast was produced by Bria Suggs and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. |
| 0:10.2 | And NPR climate correspondent Jeff Brady is also here with us. Welcome, Jeff. Hey, thank you. |
| 0:15.3 | And today on the show, for the past 16 years, the federal government has regulated climate warming emissions through something called the endangerment finding. The Trump administration just obliterated that. Jeff, give us some background to help us understand how we got here. Sure. You know, the U.S., we don't have like some big law that regulates climate pollution here. Democrats did try to |
| 0:40.2 | get one passed in 2009 a while ago, but there was a lot of opposition, you know, fossil fuel industry, |
| 0:46.5 | all that. So the Obama administration decided to regulate greenhouse gases, the greenhouse gases |
| 0:52.2 | that are warming the climate through a section of the |
| 0:55.6 | Clean Air Act. And under that law, the EPA found that greenhouse gases endanger public health |
| 1:02.1 | and welfare. First, they regulated climate pollution from cars, then expanded that to the power |
| 1:08.1 | industry and the oil and gas industry. That's the endangerment |
| 1:12.1 | finding you just mentioned, that greenhouse gases are warming the climate, endangering people's |
| 1:16.8 | health. And for almost 17 years, that's been the basis for the federal government's work |
| 1:22.1 | to address climate change. And that brings us to last week. The Trump administration repealed the environmental protection agency's endangerment finding. |
| 1:30.5 | Here was President Trump at the White House announcing it. |
| 1:32.4 | The single largest deregulatory action in American history, that's a big statement in American history. |
| 1:41.4 | And I think we can add the words by far. |
| 1:48.2 | Under the process just completed by the EPA, we are officially terminating the so-called endangerment finding, a disastrous Obama-era |
| 1:56.0 | policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers. |
| 2:03.4 | Jeff, this is the latest in a long line of moves by the Trump administration to roll back environmental |
| 2:09.6 | regulations. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin called this the holy grail of federal regulatory |
| 2:16.0 | overreach. So what happens as a result of terminating |
| 2:20.5 | the endangerment finding? Yeah, well, right now it means there are no more climate pollution |
| 2:26.7 | regulations on cars. That's what this applies to here in the beginning. And that's important |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.