Trump Moves to Dismantle US Climate Law - Now Comes the Legal Test
Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast
Persephonica
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Trump administration last week announced the repeal of the ‘endangerment finding’ - the 2009 determination that climate change threatens public health and welfare. It may sound arcane, but this piece of legislation empowered the US federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This decision weakens the regulatory backbone of American climate policy, and may reshape the country’s emissions trajectory for years to come.
So what happens next?
This week, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson consider the politics, the economics and the climate reality of this move. And Tom calls friend of the show Manish Bapna, President and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, whose organisation is preparing to challenge the rollback in court. Speaking to us just as the case was filed, Manish explains why the endangerment finding has long been the legal bedrock of federal climate action, and how the case could climb all the way to the Supreme Court.
Until then, uncertainty reins: is this a temporary political detour - or a structural turning point for US climate leadership? And if federal authority falters, will states, businesses and markets keep the transition moving anyway?
Learn More:
🌿 Learn how the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding established the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gases
📊 Understand the ‘Social Cost of Carbon’ - and why putting a price on climate damage matters
⚖️ Read the statement from NRDC and its partners outlining their legal challenge to the rollback
🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe
Join the conversation:
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Or get in touch with us via this form.
Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford
This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Manish, good to talk to you. |
| 0:03.5 | Great to be with you. |
| 0:04.6 | How's your week going? |
| 0:05.5 | It's been quite a lot going on over there, I think. |
| 0:08.6 | We all hoped after the winter holidays that 26 would be a little bit more of a sane year compared to 25. |
| 0:17.5 | How's that going? |
| 0:18.4 | Started with the United States invading Venezuela for oil and gas. |
| 0:22.7 | Don't forget Greenland. That was in there. Greenland ice agents across cities in this country. |
| 0:28.9 | And now we have the federal government saying that the science and the law to tackle climate change no longer exists. |
| 0:34.8 | So it has been a eventful two months. Let's get into it. |
| 0:42.2 | Hello and welcome to outrage and optimism. I'm Tom Ravitt Karnak. I'm Christiana Figueres. |
| 0:46.5 | And I'm Paul Dickinson. This week we're talking about the rollback of the endangerment finding |
| 0:50.7 | that Donald Trump's administration completed last week. and we speak to Manish Bapner, |
| 0:55.0 | CEO of the Natural Resources Defence Council and the man who is going to be taking the US administration to court to prevent them from taking this crazy step. |
| 1:04.1 | Thanks for being here. |
| 1:06.0 | Okay, so if you are listening to this podcast on the day it comes out the 19th of February, then this news is a week old. |
| 1:12.4 | So we have a chance to dig in deep to it, but probably this since this podcast are already aware that last week, Donald Trump rolled back what's called the endangerment finding under the Clean Air Act, which is the ruling from Obama's time in the White House that the federal government has the legal |
| 1:28.7 | authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, in fact has the responsibility to regulate them |
| 1:33.6 | in order to keep Americans and keep the world safe. The fact that this is happening now is |
| 1:38.4 | interesting. The economics has already shifted. Donald Trump has been responsible for more closures |
| 1:42.9 | of coal-fired power plants than any other |
| 1:45.1 | president before him. And so we wanted to dig into, is this a big story? What's this going to mean |
... |
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