How Trump's EPA rollbacks give US states new tools in climate suits
Source: The Guardian
How Trump’s EPA rollbacks give US states new tools in climate suits
Vermont and New York face high stakes to protect climate superfund laws as it faces attacks from Trump’s DoJ
Dharna Noor
Sun 8 Mar 2026 13.00 GMT
Last modified on Sun 8 Mar 2026 13.02 GMT
By rolling back a bedrock climate legal determination, the Trump administration has undercut its attacks on a groundbreaking state climate accountability law, green groups have argued in court.
Trump’s justice department has asked a judge to kill a first-of-its-kind 2024 Vermont “climate superfund” policy requiring major polluters to pay for damages caused by their past planet-heating pollution, partly on the grounds that that federal law, not state law, governs greenhouse gas emissions. But last month, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repealed the endangerment finding, the scientific determination giving federal officials the authority to control those very pollutants.
“They’re trying to talk out of both sides of their mouths,” said Kate Sinding Daly, senior vice-president for law and policy at the environmental legal non-profit Conservation Law Foundation (CLF).
The administration cannot claim the federal government’s ability to enact greenhouse gas regulations precludes states’ authority to pass climate superfund laws while claiming it has no statutory authority to regulate emissions, CLF and advocacy group Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont asserted in a recent filing in federal court meant to defend Vermont’s climate superfund law. (Both the EPA and the Department of Justice declined to comment on the new filing.)
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/08/trump-epa-rollbacks-vermont-new-york-climate-suits