Why Preserving the Endangerment Finding Matters for Birds, People, and Local Economies

This month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposal to reverse its 2009 “Endangerment Finding,” a landmark science-based decision under the Clean Air Act that found greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions pose a serious threat to human health and the environment. That finding, which followed the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2007 that GHGs are “air pollutants” under the Act, serves as the basis for EPA’s regulation of carbon dioxide, methane and other GHGs from key sources like power plants, oil and gas infrastructure, and cars and trucks. In 2022, Congress amended the Act to reaffirm, as the Supreme Court held, that GHGs are “air pollutants” subject to regulation.

The National Audubon Society continues to support the Endangerment Finding, which is based on an overwhelming consensus of scientists and public health experts. Since it was finalized, the Endangerment Finding has served as a critical foundation for U.S. policies that curb GHG emissions – a major driver of climate change, and one of the most significant threats to bird populations today. If the finding is weakened or eliminated, this will result in the elimination of federal GHG emission limits, increasing risks to birds and communities, while also creating regulatory uncertainty for businesses. 

Why does this matter?

There is an overwhelming scientific consensus that the shifting climate threatens birds, ecosystems, communities, and our economy. Since 1970, North America has lost more than one in four birds, or roughly 3 billion birds. This year, the 2025 U.S. State of the Birds Report revealed continued widespread declines in American bird populations, with 229 species requiring urgent conservation action. The report found that several climate-related factors are driving these declines including increased frequency of droughts and wildfires that have imperiled grassland and arid land bird species as well as sea-level rise that has significantly contributed to the disappearance of critical habitats for vulnerable and endangered shorebird species. In 2019, Audubon’s Survival by Degrees report found that two-thirds of North American bird species are at risk of extinction unless we take rapid action to address these threats.

The health risks include increased instances of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases associated with extreme temperatures. In addition, controlling GHG emissions helps reduce other harmful air pollutants that are often emitted together with planet-warming gases. Many of the common pollutants emitted alongside GHGs have been linked to increased asthma rates, heart disease, and various cancers. Further, shifts in the climate caused by GHG pollution are expanding the ranges of tick-borne illnesses and other disease pathogens, which impact communities, wildlife, agriculture, and pollinators. Respiratory illnesses and air pollution don’t just impact people. Audubon knows that pollution also has significant impacts on birds and their habitats. A 2017 study found the same air pollution that can be harmful to humans has dire consequences for birds, causing increased respiratory illness, increased stress levels, poor immune systems, reduced reproductive success, and population declines.

Should EPA eliminate the Endangerment Finding, it would sideline multiple existing climate regulations, including recent rules to limit pollution from coal and new natural gas-fired power plants and from cars and trucks, as well as efforts to curb methane emissions, putting birds and communities at greater risk.

The urgency for climate action has never been so apparent. From fires raging across the western United States, to back-to-back hurricanes battering the southeast, to widespread and sudden flooding nationwide, the impacts of increasingly volatile weather patterns are apparent, real, and devastating to families and communities across the country.

What’s next?

Audubon is firmly committed to a science-based, nonpartisan approach to protecting birds, habitats, and communities from harmful pollution and emerging climate threats. We support policies that limit GHG emissions, help drive investment in and deployment of renewable energy, and promote nature-based climate solutions that sequester carbon. EPA’s proposal to eliminate the Endangerment Finding threatens to create economic and regulatory uncertainty, endanger the health of birds and communities, and make it harder to embrace the clean and affordable forms of energy needed to tackle climate change.

EPA is accepting public input on the proposal to eliminate the Endangerment Finding until September 22. Audubon urges its members to take action and ask the EPA to reconsider this change.