WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Environmental Protection Agency today for failing to release information about the agency’s plans to reconsider, and likely undercut, its landmark scientific finding that greenhouse gasses endanger public health and the environment.
“Trump’s EPA is trying to gut every effort to fight the climate crisis in complete secrecy and with no accountability to the public,” said Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “We all have a right to know which billionaires and polluting special interests are pulling the strings as Trump attempts to bury decades of scientific knowledge about the lethal effects of climate change.”
The EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding spurred vital regulatory protections that have reduced greenhouse gas pollution from power plants, the transportation sector, and oil and gas operations.
Following President Trump’s executive order declaring a so-called national energy emergency, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin formally announced his plans to reopen a debate over the dangers of climate change that the scientific community has long considered settled.
Plans to reverse this key finding have been hidden from the public. Meanwhile, scientists’ warnings of greenhouse gases threatening lives, degrading the environment and jeopardizing life on earth have only growing louder.
The Center filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking details on the endangerment finding reversal on Feb. 20 but has not received any records. Under FOIA, the public is entitled to records regarding the function of federal agencies within 20 business days of their request.
While agencies can face backlogs in processing FOIA requests, the Trump administration is deliberately stalling. Already it has asserted that its DOGE initiative is exempt from public disclosure and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired staff responsible for responding to FOIA requests at his agency.
The Center’s FOIA lawsuits helped shed light on the first Trump administration’s efforts to undo a coal leasing moratorium on public lands and efforts to halt endangered species protections from pesticides. Records obtained from one of the lawsuits showed that former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt had stalled species protections from pesticides, which led to an investigation by the inspector general.
Today’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, Tucson Division. The Center expects to receive records from the suit in the next two to three months.
