By Will Atwater
Last week, the second administration of President Donald Trump fulfilled a long-held goal of the fossil fuel industry: scaling back federal climate regulations that restrict oil, gas and coal production. The administration rescinded the 2009 scientific determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare — known as Environmental Protection Agency’s Endangerment Finding — removing the legal foundation for regulating climate pollution under the Clean Air Act.
“Referred to by some as the ‘Holy Grail’ of the ‘climate change religion,’ the Endangerment Finding is now eliminated,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in a release. He said the agency is “returning common sense to policy” and rejecting what he described as a false choice between environmental stewardship and economic prosperity.
Legal experts in the environmental movement say the decision significantly weakens federal climate authority.
“Without the Endangerment Finding, EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions is fundamentally undermined,” said Gudrun Thompson, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Environmental advocates warned that the consequences will extend beyond legal debates.
“Communities across the country will bear the brunt of this decision — through dirtier air, higher health costs and increased climate harm,” said Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network, an organization of former EPA staff and political appointees.
Combined with the administration’s elimination of the Office of Environmental Justice, the Endangerment Finding rollback is of particular concern for communities of color, which are often close to polluting industries. The stakes are especially high for low-income and rural communities that already face repeated flooding and disproportionate exposure to industry-driven air and water contamination.
“This move is a dangerous setback for human health and our planet as a whole,” said Jovita Lee, program director of the North Carolina Black Alliance, in an email. “Allowing fossil-fuel interests to guide federal decision-making will continue the reversal of hard-earned progress and increase the financial burden for families across the country.”
Now, what lies ahead for leaders of the environmental justice movement — a movement with deep roots in North Carolina — is uncertainty under an administration that has signaled it will prioritize fossil fuel development and regulatory rollbacks over environmental protections.
This is not the first time communities here have faced federal resistance.
Lessons from the past
In 1982, a decade before the Environmental Protection Agency created what would become its Office of Environmental Justice, protests erupted in Warren County over the state’s decision to place a PCB-contaminated soil landfill in a predominantly Black, rural community.
On Sept. 24, 2022, then–EPA Administrator Michael Regan returned to Warren County to announce the creation of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. The office would help administer $3 billion through a climate and environmental justice block grant program created by the Inflation Reduction Act — part of what the Biden administration described as a broader $60 billion federal commitment to this effort.
Across North Carolina, that commitment reflected persistent public health concerns including: PFAS-contaminated water and air pollution linked to industrial animal operations in eastern North Carolina to ethylene oxide emissions, a known carcinogen, and elevated PM2.5 levels in Charlotte.
Speaking at Wake Forest University’s recent 2026 Mellon Environmental Justice Lecture, former EPA Administrator Michael Regan reflected on how the Warren County protests influenced his path into public service.
“They didn’t just make a fuss,” Regan said. “They ignited a powerful national movement right here in Warren County, North Carolina.”
Regan said leaders such as Dollie Burwell, known as the mother of the movement, helped redefine civic participation.
“African Americans determined that henceforth and forevermore, we will have some say in the government that was controlling our destiny. This is the legacy that shaped Michael Regan long before I walked into the halls of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Communities press on amid uncertainty
As the Trump administration restructures or eliminates environmental justice programs, and rolls back climate regulations, advocates say the federal government is retreating from decades of environmental and public health progress.
This reversal isn’t a regulatory tweak,” said DJ Gerken, Southern Environmental Law Center’s president and executive director, in a release. “It’s this administration’s declaration that climate change doesn’t exist, and that the federal government has no role in addressing the pollution and industries that cause it.”
For communities such as Warren County, the concern is whether federal agencies will continue to serve as a backstop when state and local systems fall short.
Environmental justice pioneer Robert Bullard, often called the father of environmental justice, said the movement is about more than federal programs, it’s about protecting the day-to-day lives of Americans — especially the most vulnerable. Bullard gave his comments during Wake Forest University’s 10th Annual John W. Hatch Lecture and Symposium in December.
“Our movement redefined environmentalism and redefined the environment,” Bullard said. “The environment is everything. It’s where we live, work, play, learn, worship, as well as the physical and natural world.”
Bullard traced his vocation back to a 1979 lawsuit challenging the placement of a landfill in a middle-class Black neighborhood in Houston. His research found that the vast majority of the city’s waste facilities were located in predominantly Black communities — patterns rooted in segregation and land-use policy.
It was in Warren County, North Carolina, he noted, that the movement gained national attention. Protests over the state’s decision to locate a PCB landfill in a rural, predominantly Black community helped galvanize the idea that environmental protection and civil rights are inseparable.
Moving forward
Warren County and other communities across the state continue to fight for clean air, water and soil, while facing mounting pressures to accommodate the push to expand the footprint of data centers and large-scale solar farms into rural areas.
Data centers, in particular, have drawn concern from some environmentalists and rural residents, who worry that the facilities’ heavy energy and water demands could strain local energy and water resources.
As communities prepare for these potential changes and seek a stronger voice in decisions about development, Bill Kearney, director of the Warren County Environmental Action Team, said it is important to remember how past victories were achieved.
“We had everyday people who had enough, and then they collectively reached across the state, across the country, [attracting] like-minded people,” Kearney said. “We need this grassroots movement again.”
Regan, who led North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality before serving as EPA administrator, acknowledged that the movement is in a period of retrenchment.
“The truth is, the fight for justice has never been linear,” Regan said during his speech at Wake Forest. “There are peaks and valleys, and we’re living through one of those valleys right now.”
Regan expressed confidence that the downturn would not be permanent. “When we make it through this valley — and we will — this movement will be stronger, smarter and more durable,” he said.
Reflecting on the setbacks the environmental justice movement has faced under the Trump administration, Burwell, said young people keep her hopeful.
“They tell me, ‘Don’t get discouraged,’” Burwell said. “‘In 1982, when you all led that movement, there was no Office of Environmental Justice. There was no TikTok, no Facebook, no Instagram. If ordinary Black people could help create environmental justice offices around this country, then even if they close, we have the capacity not only to reopen them, but to build back better.’”them, but to build back better.’”
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