The End EPA Abuse Act Seeks to Limit EPA's Adherence to Climate Psychosis
Bill would codify limits on the Environmental Protection Agency, unleashing American power and allowing you to buy the car you want.
U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the End EPA Abuse Act of 2026 on June 25 to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from issuing regulations that exceed congressional intent under the Clean Air Act. The legislation, cosponsored by Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), targets repeated EPA overreach that abuses the Clean Air Act to reshape the economy rather than solely protect air quality. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) introduced a companion bill in the House.
Sen. Lee called the bill a move away from "climate psychosis."
A coalition of dozens of groups has signed on to a letter of support for the End EPA Abuse Act.
Taking a Stand for American Power
"The EPA has overstepped its authority as far as possible to put America's energy producers in a chokehold," Lee said in a statement. "They've exploited any power they can grab to push Biden and Obama's climate psychosis at the expense of our energy security. They make up and enforce regulations to suffocate America's energy producers and devastate major sectors of our economy."
Lee says the End EPA Abuse Act will put policymaking authority back in the hands of Congress—not to the "leftwing bureaucracy."
Sen. Lummis decried the EPA's years-long assault on domestic energy, while also reminding Americans who should actually hold the power. "The EPA has spent years using the Clean Air Act as a backdoor tool to wage war on fossil fuels and strip Americans of their energy choices," Lummis said. "The End EPA Abuse Act puts Congress back in the driver's seat where we belong."
Both senators remind us that the ultimate authority should reside in elected officials, not lifetime bureaucrats unaccountable to the voters.
Rep. Clyde, introducing the House companion, said, "Under the Biden Administration, the EPA increasingly treated the Clean Air Act as a blank check to push de facto electric vehicle mandates, jeopardize reliable energy sources, and impose costly regulations on American consumers and businesses." Clyde framed this bill as pushback against a radical agenda to undermine American energy production.
Putting the Bureaucrats Back in their Box
The bill adds explicit limitations on the EPA Administrator's regulatory authority. It prohibits any regulation or waiver (including California waivers) that would:
- Restrict or effectively restrict the sale or use of any vehicle or engine, including new internal combustion engine vehicles;
- Require or necessitate fuel-switching at power plants;
- Reduce the reliability of the electric grid;
- Mandate the use of technology that is commercially unavailable, cost-prohibitive without subsidies, infeasible due to geographic/climatic/infrastructure factors, or otherwise technically, economically, or practically unachievable; or
- Otherwise significantly expand the Administrator's authority beyond Congress's intent.
California has imposed draconian requirements on all new vehicles sold in the state. Given the size of California's economy, it has an outsized effect on auto manufacturers. Removing the EPA waiver that allows the state to impose these excessive regulations will return market forces back to the automobile industry, bringing costs down for all Americans.
These provisions build on the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in West Virginia v. EPA, which rejected the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan and its attempt to force broad shifts away from "fossil fuels." In that decision, the majority applied the major questions doctrine: When an agency claims power to make decisions of "vast economic and political significance," it must point to clear congressional authorization. The Obama administration, they ruled, didn't have such authorization—they just made it up.
Coalition Support and Analysis
On July 14, 2026, the Competitive Enterprise Institute led a coalition of more than 40 free-market and conservative organizations in a letter to Congress supporting the bill. The letter argues that the EPA has expanded its Clean Air Act authority "to levels that defy common sense and the will of Congress," using the statute "as a pretext to change the economy and how Americans live their lives." It cites examples such as electric-vehicle mandates carrying hundreds of billions in compliance costs and rules that positioned the agency as the nation's grid manager.
"It is time to stop the EPA from acting like an economic planning agency and instead get it focused on its mission of environmental protection," the coalition letter states.
Daren Bakst, director of CEI's Center for Energy and Environment, elaborated in a June 25 release and subsequent commentary:
The EPA is supposed to be focused on environmental protection, not on trying to stretch the Clean Air Act to change the very nature of our economy. Yet this is exactly what has been happening in recent years. Not long ago, people would have been thought of as wacky if they claimed the EPA would try to use the Clean Air Act to kill off gas-powered cars or try and change how the country produces electricity. But this is exactly what the agency has been doing.
The End EPA Abuse Act establishes much-needed guardrails on the EPA. The bill is a means by which Congress would be reasserting its power while still allowing the EPA to do its job to protect the environment. The only thing the bill prohibits is the greatest abuses that common sense tells us Congress never authorized in the first place. Sen. Lee and Rep. Clyde should be commended for introducing this critical reform bill.
Today, over 40 organizations sent a letter to Congress supporting the End EPA Abuse Act.
— Daren Bakst (@darenbakst) July 14, 2026
Congress never intended for the EPA to help kill off gas-powered cars, coal, and natural gas. But the EPA tried anyway.
Congress needs to stop these abuses.https://t.co/Zk3PlFHXma
The EPA has tried to expand its Clean Air Act authority to levels that defy common sense and the will of Congress.
— Daren Bakst (@darenbakst) July 14, 2026
It is using the CAA as a pretext to change the economy and how Americans live their lives.
The End EPA Abuse Act would stop this abuse.https://t.co/Zk3PlFHXma
The End EPA Abuse Act represents an effort by Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over major policy decisions involving energy and transportation. By focusing on feasibility, cost (independent of subsidies), and effects on grid reliability and consumer choice, it seeks to prevent the EPA from using regulatory authority to achieve outcomes Congress never explicitly authorized—such as effectively banning internal combustion engines or compelling uneconomic and unproven technology shifts.
States Fight Back
The EPA has interpreted the Clean Air Act expansively for decades to allow it to define industrial policy. Examples include efforts to phase out coal through fuel-switching mandates and greenhouse gas standards for vehicles that functioned as indirect—and sometimes direct—electric vehicle requirements.
Court rulings and recent deregulatory actions—including the Trump administration's February 2026 rescission of the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and associated vehicle standards—have addressed some excesses. But future administrations could reverse course via executive order unless clear statutory boundaries become law.
A June 11, 2026, letter from 20 state Attorneys General, led by West Virginia AG John B. McCuskey, strongly endorses the measure. The AGs contend that EPA rules have raised costs for consumers, threatened grid reliability, reduced vehicle choices, and harmed state economies while bypassing Congress. They state that the bill's five targeted prohibitions "map onto real and recurring forms of EPA overreach" while still allowing the agency to perform its core environmental protection functions.
In the letter, McCuskey and his colleagues wrote:
The End EPA Abuse Act of 2026 is a win for our States and our residents. We are grateful that the Trump administration has moved aggressively to correct many of the Biden-era and Obama-era excesses described above. EPA Administrator Zeldin has been a skilled partner in unwinding unlawful rules, and we applaud those efforts. But statutory guardrails—not administrative forbearance—provide the durable solution our constituents deserve. Thank you for your commitment to keeping the EPA within its statutory authority. The States recognize that EPA has an important role to play. We ask only that Congress ensure that, in playing that role, the EPA does not again usurp ours.
The bill's text and supporting materials stress that legitimate Clean Air Act implementation remains intact. The prohibitions target only the most expansive interpretations that cross into economic engineering.
The End EPA Abuse Act represents welcomed pushback against bureaucratic creep that has invaded too much of America's economy and private lives. Passing it into law would help restore the proper scope of environmental regulation.
With strong backing from Republican-led states and the more than 40 organizations in the CEI-led coalition, the End EPA Abuse Act is a proactive measure to lock in limits on out-of-control federal agencies.
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