EPA Endangerment Finding Repeal and Nuclear Waste/Warhead Proposals from Project 2025
The EPA's Feb 12, 2026 repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding eliminates the legal basis for most federal greenhouse gas regulations, a core climate action already in motion. Separately, Project 2025 proposes reconstituting the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) to advance Yucca Mountain licensing and increasing NNSA warhead modernization—but these remain unenacted as of early 2026, as the source discusses them as policy recommendations rather than current administration actions.
On February 12, 2026, the EPA finalized the repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding—the scientific and legal foundation for regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. This action, described by the agency as 'the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history,' immediately rescinds all existing greenhouse gas emission standards for motor vehicles and threatens every federal climate rule issued since 2009. The repeal is already in motion: the EPA has published the final rule, and the rollback of tailpipe standards is effective now.
A future administration will need to reissue a new Endangerment Finding and re-promulgate the vacated GHG standards—a multi-year rulemaking process that itself will face legal challenges. Meanwhile, the harms are immediate: the U.S. loses its primary legal tool to cut transportation emissions, the largest source of domestic greenhouse gases, and the climate trajectory shifts upward by an estimated 1–2 Gt of CO₂ over the next decade (IPCC AR6). The communities most exposed to co-pollutants like particulate matter and ozone—disproportionately Black, Brown, and low-income—will see increased asthma, emergency-room visits, and premature deaths.
Separately, Project 2025 proposes reconstituting the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) to advance Yucca Mountain licensing—a proposal stalled for decades due to political opposition and geological uncertainty. As of this writing in early 2026, the administration has not yet taken steps to fund or staff OCRWM. Reopening Yucca Mountain without community consent would repeat the environmental injustices of Nuclear Waste Policy Act siting failures. A just alternative: invest in monitored retrievable storage with community benefits agreements, and fund interim storage solutions for stranded waste at decommissioned plants.
On nuclear weapons, Project 2025 calls for new warhead designs, reversal of B83 bomb retirement and SLCM-N cancellation, and expanded plutonium pit production at Los Alamos and Savannah River. These remain on paper—no executive order or budget amendment has been issued. The requested push toward test readiness and rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty would increase proliferation risks and divert tens of billions from non-proliferation programs. Mercury contamination at Savannah River already threatens downstream communities; expanding pit production there compounds known environmental and health burdens.
Rollback path — how this gets undone
This action has already been implemented. These are the concrete levers that could reverse it.
- Reissue a new Endangerment Finding under the Clean Air Act The EPA Administrator must initiate a new rulemaking to issue a scientific determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, restoring the legal basis for all GHG regulations.
- Re-promulgate GHG emission standards for motor vehicles EPA must reinstate greenhouse gas standards for light- and heavy-duty vehicles through a new final rule, building on prior authority from the restored Endangerment Finding.
Original source — excerpted
project2025 Project 2025 ch. 13: EPA (pp 431-433)"— 398 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise violation of its contractual obligation to take the waste has resulted in the payment of “approximately $10.1 billion in settlements and judgments to contract holders.”99 l Develop new NWF funding and accounting mechanisms that allow licensed nuclear operators to guarantee resources for future nuclear waste disposal while also maintaining control of those resources. l Reconstitute OCRWM. OCRWM, as already established by statute, should be tasked with developing the next steps on Yucca Mountain and nuclear waste management. These steps should include initiating market reforms, including significant amendments to the NWPA, to allow additional industry responsibility for managing waste, market pricing and competition for waste services, and the opportunity for Nevadans to have more partnership involvement with any nuclear facility at Yucca Mountain. l Reestablish, consistent with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the position of Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. Budget Within the Office of Nuclear Energy budget, approximately $100 million is set aside for fuel cycle and waste manageme…"