On Nov. 2, 2026 the attorney general’s office said California Attorney General joined a coalition of 27 states, counties and cities in opposing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s supplemental proposal to rescind the 2015 Endangerment Finding for fossil fuel power plants.
The office said the 2015 Endangerment Finding acknowledged that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power plants contribute to climate change and triggered EPA’s duty to set limits; the comment letter warns that if EPA finalizes its supplemental proposal it would effectively abandon Section 111 of the Clean Air Act and preclude future federal regulation of those emissions, a result the letter says conflicts with the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the statute.
“The President can’t keep burying his head in the sand and ignoring the truth. Climate change is real, it’s caused by greenhouse gas emissions, and decades of settled science warned us this was coming. This proposal is a dangerous retreat from science, the law, and common sense,” Attorney General Bonta said in the department statement.
The attorney general’s office tied the rule change to practical harms for Californians; it said failing to control power-sector emissions will intensify heat waves, wildfires, severe storms, flooding, disease, air pollution and ecosystem harm. The release cites last year’s Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire in Los Angeles County and recent record tides inundating Southern California streets and homes as examples of risks the office says would be exacerbated.
In its formal comments, the coalition argues several legal and administrative defects; the letter says EPA cannot rewrite the Clean Air Act or overrule the U.S. Supreme Court and that EPA’s major-questions arguments fail, argues that “futility” is an impermissible reason not to regulate, and contends the supplemental proposal is arbitrary and capricious because EPA did not adequately explain its change in position, quantify pollutant impacts, or consider effects on grid reliability and electricity affordability.
Bonta filed the comment alongside the attorneys general of New York, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaiʻi, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, and the attorney general for the District of Columbia; the comment also includes the chief legal officers of Chicago, Denver and New York City and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the office said.
State
Rob Bonta
Attorney General · Democrat
Named 2 times in this story.
Portrait: Official portrait
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