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A government watchdog is accusing the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of pre-determining the legal basis for its climate framework.
In an amicus filing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO), a nonpartisan nonprofit, unearthed communications from inside the EPA in 2009.
Those communications, the GAO argued, show that climate-minded officials treated Obama’s Endangerment Finding as a foregone conclusion and later used it as the foundation for vehicle emission standards, power plant regulations and permitting restrictions. In particular, GAO pointed to communications from Lisa Heinzerling, who served as the climate policy counsel at the EPA at the time.
In a 2009 email, she claimed the right findings would create a legal mandate for regulation.
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Former President Barack Obama during a campaign event on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"We expect to be able to issue a proposed finding of endangerment for greenhouse gases within the next 100 days," Heinzerling wrote on Feb. 8. "Within the same document, we expect to find that certain major categories of greenhouse gases — in particular motor vehicles — cause or contribute to air pollution which endangers public health and welfare."
"An endangerment finding … will trigger regulatory obligations under the Clean Air Act," Heinzerling added.
Her email was sent just two weeks after President Barack Obama's inauguration.
Michael Chamberlain, the director of Protect the Public’s Trust, another government accountability group, said the communications appear to telegraph a pre-determined outcome.
"The records from that time period merely confirm what many had suspected. The Obama administration’s Endangerment Finding was flawed from the start. It is clear that the new EPA appointees entered office determined to enact this massive bureaucratic overreach," Chamberlain said.
The unearthed communications come as the Trump administration has made moves to end Obama-era energy regulations.
In February, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency would be rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding.
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EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin attends a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House on March 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
"[It] has been the source of 16 years of consumer choice restrictions and trillions of dollars in hidden costs for Americans," Zeldin said in a February press release.
However, the Trump administration’s effort ran into legal challenges from a handful of organizations, including the American Public Health Association, the American Lung Association and the Environmental Law & Policy Center.
They argued that Trump is arbitrarily trying to suspend scientific findings. The matter is currently before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Despite the ongoing debate over the Trump administration’s efforts, the GAO believes the origins of the Endangerment Finding itself should be enough to decide the matter.
In its amicus brief, GAO continued to highlight what it saw as a process inconsistent with deliberative requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
GAO highlighted another memo from Heinzerling — this time to President Obama.
"We have a political fraught but scientifically and legally straightforward decision ready to go: that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and that mobile sources contribute to the pollution that is dangerous," Heinzerling wrote in March 2009.
In a separate memo to the White House, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urged the president to issue the Endangerment Finding for political reasons.
"If Earth Day passed without a finding, the domestic and foreign criticism would begin immediately and mount steadily. When, eventually, your administration [makes] the finding — something that, I will be so bold to say, is a near-certainty — it would be described as more the result of criticism than of leadership," Jackson wrote.
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Former President Barack Obama reacts as he leaves 10 Downing Street in central London, on March 18, 2024. (Adrian Dennis/AFP)
The GAO’s filing blasted the phrasing.
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"There is no evidence that at any time it was an open question whether the Endangerment Finding would be issued," the GAO wrote.
Neither Heinzerling nor Jackson responded to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
Leo Briceno is a politics reporter for the congressional team at Fox News Digital. He was previously a reporter with World Magazine.
