#clean-air-act

#clean-air-act

On February 12, 2026, the Trump administration officially repealed the Environmental Protection Agency's 2009 Endangerment Finding, which had determined that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and welfare. The cost to future generations is incalculable, as a variety of rules that prevent global warming are now at risk. President Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the decision at the White House, calling it "the single largest deregulatory action in American history."

Last spring, the Environmental Protection Agency made a surprise announcement: President Donald Trump would consider giving some polluters exemptions from a handful of Clean Air Act rules. To get the ball rolling, all it would take was an email from a company making its case. The EPA set up a special inbox to receive these applications, and it gave companies about three weeks at the end of March to submit their requests for presidential exemption.

The Supreme Court is expected to get a chance to take a second look at a landmark 2007 decision that paved the way for federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, power plants, and other sources. But this time, legal scholars say, a shift in the makeup of the court may lead to a much different outcome, one that could have far-reaching implications for the nation's battle against climate change.

"I am horrified but not surprised. The flagrant violation of the Clean Air Act and the disregard for our human right to clean air, by xAI's burning of illegal methane turbines, has been stamped as permissible by the Shelby County Health Department."

For instance, if all the 35 turbines operated by xAI were using add-on air pollution control technology to achieve a NOx emission rate of 2 ppm-as xAI's consultant agreed it would-they would emit about 177 tons of NOx per year, as opposed to the 1,200 to 2,100 tons per year they currently emit, the letter said.