On Thursday, Feb. 12, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officially rescinded the Endangerment Finding — a 2009 determination by the EPA that classified greenhouse gases as an environmental harm subject to federal regulation under the Clean Air Act. This decision marks one of many departures from environmental policy precedent under the Trump administration.
As of late June and early July 2025, the Trump administration removed the National Climate Assessment (NCA) and the U.S. Global Change Research Program website from federal servers, limiting public access to key climate reports. Sarah Fortner, Director of Sustainability at Carleton, said that this intentional choice by the current administration has replaced decades of credible climate research with unscientific research.
“The National Climate Assessment has been produced for 20 years,” Fortner said. “And it is the first year they have been taken completely offline.”
Instead of using the National Climate Assessment, the Department of Energy released an alternative self-reported assessment. Fortner said she views this alternative report as unscientific.
“[The alternative] report was written by climate deniers,” said Fortner. “The reason they wrote it… was to raise skepticism about how important and how relevant climate science is.”
The alternative report’s controversial findings were cited in the EPA’s decision to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which classified greenhouse gas emissions as a public health hazard and has been the foundation of U.S. climate policies for over a decade. After this decision was challenged, the Supreme Court ruled that the controversial report was an appropriate basis for policy decisions, allowing the Trump administration to use it as justification for deregulatory actions relating to climate change policy. Fortner sees this action as part of a larger trend.
In the first year of the second Trump administration, the federal government has also opened up previously protected land for fossil fuel extraction.
“The government, through Congress and through executive branch agencies… has a lot of latitude to determine what happens on that land,” said Lilian Fisher ’25, Educational Associate in Sustainability at Carleton. “By opening up more land to fossil fuel extraction, the government only exacerbates the climate crisis.”
Additionally, Fisher expressed concerns about the current administration’s defunding of climate change research grants and of federal environmental programs. In early 2026, Trump proposed a 27% budget cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) budget and initiated plans to break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
“[Defunding the NCAR] hurts our ability to understand climate impacts and climate mitigation techniques,” Fisher said.
Outside of Carleton, other members of the scientific community have also been critical of Trump’s actions.
“The National Academies was a body outside of the federal government that convened a consensus report on greenhouse gases to basically verify and validate the ruling that was just undermined,” said Fortner.
The White House stated that deregulatory measures are meant to reduce the prices of vehicles and other goods for consumers. While she acknowledged the expenses of regulating climate change, Fortner said the real long-term costs of deregulation are even greater.
“[Deregulation] doesn’t help the average person,” Fortner said. “The impact of climate change costs our health.”
Fisher also said she believes the Trump administration has other political motivations behind rescinding the Endangerment Finding. “Some of the interests the Trump administration represents are fossil fuel executives and companies that want to maximize profits for their shareholders,” said Fisher, who feels the Trump administration has other political motivations.
Another possible motive, according to Fisher, is a culture war against liberal causes. “Liberals — their perceived enemies — are represented by a number of different issues that they want to react against, including regulating polluters and caring about climate change,” Fisher said.
Other students have echoed Fisher and Fortner’s perspectives. One anonymous Carleton student argued that the Trump administration has been attempting to “convert people’s outrage at big oil companies…[and redirect] it toward a kind of left-versus-right culture war.”
Regardless of motive, environmental deregulation in the U.S. could have global impacts.. According to international data from the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, the U.S. ranks second among the world’s carbon dioxide emitters. The nation’s emissions have been largely curtailed over the past two decades, but with many regulations now lifted, this progress could stall. The future of global climate change remains uncertain.
“Personally, I think we will likely blow past the goal of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Will it blow past two degrees or three? Who knows?” Fisher said.
Deregulatory actions by the federal government will place greater responsibility for climate policy on individual states. Fisher said that Minnesota needs to “regulate emissions itself and educate the public on climate change mitigation.”
College campuses such as Carleton can also take on responsibility for regulating their own carbon emissions; Fisher said that this is a responsibility that the Carleton sustainability office understands.
“We are expanding our measurement and mitigation of our own emissions … We are [also] inserting climate change and sustainability across the curriculum,” Fisher said.
Individuals can also take on personal responsibility to protect the climate. The anonymous student interviewed said that students should feel an increased need to educate themselves on climate science and to remain critical in the current circumstances.
“Students should take climate education into their own hands now that the government will just say anything,” the student said.
The student also added that academically rigorous institutions such as Carleton play an increasingly important role in upholding the integrity of scientific research.
“It’s important that an institution like Carleton, being relatively free of government overreach, has greater responsibility to educate students on the real danger of climate change,” they said.