The End EPA Abuse Act Would Put Congress Back in Charge

Under the Biden administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) treated the Clean Air Act (CAA) less like a statute and more like a blank check to reshape the transportation and energy sectors. The End EPA Abuse Act, introduced by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), would the CAA and create guardrails for the EPA. The bill would restore Congress’s role in environmental policymaking by preventing the EPA from using the CAA to impose mandates (beyond the bounds of congressional intent) that would reshape entire economic sectors.

Currently, the CAA allows the EPA to claim authority through a multitude of provisions, often making overreach difficult to challenge. The End EPA Abuse Act would amend Section 301, which gives the EPA Administrator authority to “prescribe such regulations as are necessary to carry out his functions” under the law. The bill would add limitations to that general authority by ensuring that the EPA does not expand its authority beyond congressional intent, restrict the sale of vehicles or engines, require fuel-switching, reduce grid reliability or dependable energy, or require unavailable or infeasible technologies.

The EPA has used ambiguity in the CAA to make major policy choices that Congress never clearly approved. For example, the EPA used the 2009 Endangerment Finding, rescinded in February, to set transportation and energy policy across the nation.

Major questions of this sort should belong to Congress. The Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA (2022) affirmed this principle in recognizing the “major questions doctrine,” which requires agencies to rely upon congressional authorization when imposing policies of vast economic or political significance. Moreover, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) reinforced that concern by ending so-called Chevron deference and restoring courts’ role in interpreting ambiguous statutes. With the End EPA Abuse Act, Congress, the first branch of the federal government and the branch best suited to addressing this problem, would join the campaign against overreaching bureaucrats.

Besides stretching congressional authorization, the EPA has also imposed emissions rules that functioned as de facto electric vehicle (EV) mandates by restricting the availability of gas-powered vehicles. For example, the agency issued a final vehicle “tailpipe” rule in 2024 that is projected to impose $760 billion in compliance costs on the American economy and consumers. Climate rules often have limited benefits while decreasing consumer choice and pushing production offshore. The End EPA Abuse Act would block the EPA from issuing vehicle regulations that harm the American economy and consumer.

EPA rules have also strongarmed power plants to abandon coal or natural gas through fuel-switching or generation-shifting requirements. West Virginia v. EPA addressed whether the agency had authority under Section 111(d) of the CAA to cap emissions from power plants based on a generation-shifting scheme. Fuel-switching rules are not ordinary pollution controls as outlined by the CAA, but rather environmentalist policies. The executive branch and agencies should not have unilateral power to make these decisions but act according to explicit congressional instructions.

In another instance of overreach, the EPA and state-waiver programs have required technology that is not commercially available, affordable, or practical at scale. For example, in 2024, the California Air Resources Board requested a waiver for its In-Use Locomotive Regulation, in which freight railroads would be required to switch to zero-emission locomotives by 2030. However, zero-emission freight locomotives had not been shown to be commercially viable, and the technology was not mature enough to ensure viability by the rule’s deadline. Additionally, the rule would have imposed $13.8 billion in compliance costs through 2050, risking bankruptcy for small railroads. This would reduce rail’s ability to compete, likely shifting transportation to trucks.

The End EPA Abuse Act would address these types of abuses and many more. It would not eliminate the EPA’s ability to protect the environment but rather limit the agency’s ability to use the Clean Air Act as a tool for gross overreach. Most importantly, it would return major policy decisions to Congress.