Christine Banfield is seen in an undated photo. Obtained by ABC News
(FAIRFAX, Va.) — Brazilian au pair Juliana Peres Magalhães, who went along with former IRS agent Brendan Banfield in a northern Virginia double murder plot, was sentenced to to 10 years in prison with two years of probation.
On Friday morning, Fairfax County Judge Penney Azcarate decided to give the 25-year-old the maximum sentence, which was up to 10 years on a manslaughter charge for which she pleaded guilty in 2024.
“Your actions were deliberate, self-serving, and demonstrated a profound disregard for human life,” Azcarate said in delivering her ruling. “So, let’s get straight: You do not deserve anything other than incarceration and a life of reflection on what you have done to the victim and this family.”
A new “20/20” episode about the case, “The Au Pair, The Affair and Murder” is scheduled to air Friday, Feb. 20, at 9 p.m. ET on ABC and streaming the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
Magalhães and Banfield were separately arrested over their roles in the Feb. 24, 2023, murders of Joseph Ryan and Banfield’s wife, Christine Banfield, which were committed inside the Banfield home.
Early in the investigation, detectives discovered evidence suggesting that Banfield and Magalhães were having an affair — and that they had plotted to kill his 37-year-old wife.
Part of that plot, according to prosecutors and Magalhães’ testimony, involved covertly creating a profile for, and thus masquerading as, Christine on a social media site for sexual fetishes.
Ryan, 39, took the bait in what prosecutors called the “catfishing” scheme. Ryan communicated back and forth with the profile account that was allegedly posing as Christine, as they together crafted a rape fantasy scenario using a knife, chains and rope.
“I have caused pain that cannot be measured. I pray for forgiveness from the Benson family, and from the Joseph Ryan family,” Magalhães said during Friday’s sentencing hearing.
“There is nothing I could possibly do to make it up to you, for your loss. There are so many regrets, this is my biggest. It’s a tragedy I have been carrying with me, and I know I can never take back the devastation of what I have done,” she added.
Saying she lost herself in the relationship with Banfield, she has changed in jail over the past three years.
At the time, Magalhães and Banfield told police they came home to find Ryan — a stranger to them — stabbing Christine Banfield to death. Banfield and Magalhães each fired a shot, killing Ryan, they said both in their 911 call and to responding officers at the scene.
In October 2023, Magalhães was charged with the second-degree murder of Ryan, as she had admitted to firing the second, fatal shot.
One year later, Magalhães took a plea deal with prosecutors, turning on Banfield in exchange for a lesser charge of manslaughter. Prosecutors also promised to recommend to the judge upon sentencing that Magalhães only get time served.
With that agreement, Magalhães sat for nearly four hours of interviews with prosecutors, largely confirming the theory detectives had developed about their scheme.
Magalhães also took the stand in the trial against Banfield in January, as he maintained his innocence. During his three-week-long trial, Banfield even took the stand, testifying in his own defense.
After two days — nearly nine hours total — of deliberations in the trial, the jury reached a verdict on Feb. 2. The jury found Banfield guilty on all four counts, which included two counts of aggravated murder, one count of child endangerment, and possession of a firearm in commission of a felony.
Family and friends of Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan filled the courtroom Friday morning for Magalhães’ sentencing.
Joining remotely online from Florida, Ryan’s mother, Deirdre Fisher, delivered her victim impact statement. She said her son was born two days before Christmas, making it a special holiday for them. Since Ryan’s murder, she has not been able to take down her Christmas tree, which sits behind the urn holding her son’s ashes.
“I say good morning to him each day when I turn on the tree’s lights, and I tell him I love him each night when I turn off the lights,” Fisher told the court.
Fisher said she has missed so many milestones now, including the chance to be a grandmother. There have been many times, Fisher said, when she’s reached for the phone to call her son, only to remember that he can’t and won’t answer.
Ryan’s aunt, Sangeeta Ryan, delivered her impact statement from the courtroom, pausing periodically between sobs.
“He was fun-loving and loved from the beginning. He was inquisitive, curious, smart, charming, and so dang talkative,” she said.
Ryan’s aunt described her nephew’s love for animals and the environment, noting that he often rescued and adopted dogs.
Sangeeta Ryan, added that he also was a dedicated member of their family, especially in taking care of his grandmother, who, she said, sold her home in wake of Ryan’s murder to “dodge memories, grief, and reporters.”
Acknowledging that Magalhães did eventually come forward with the truth, Sangeeta Ryan said that this still was not an act of heroism on Magalhães’ part.
“This could have been a very different ending where Juliana saved two lives,” she said could have been the case if Magalhães had not gone along with Banfield’s plot.
As Magalhães was charged only in Ryan’s murder, Judge Azcarate ruled that prosecutors could not include victim impact statements that Christine Banfield’s family members had prepared.
The death penalty was abolished in Virginia in 2021, meaning that, following his conviction, Banfield is facing life in prison without parole.
The Environmental Protection Agency flag flies outside the EPA headquarters in Washington on Thursday, August 7, 2025. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — More than two dozen Senate Democrats are launching an independent investigation into the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over a rule change on how the agency calculates the health benefits from curbing air pollution.
The EPA wrote in its regulatory impact analysis last month that it would no longer apply a dollar value to the health benefits that result from its regulations for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone because the agency says there’s too much uncertainty in the estimates. In the past, the EPA calculated a dollar value based on the health benefits of reducing air pollution, which included the number of premature deaths and illnesses avoided, such as asthma attacks.
The senators described the new policy as “irrational” and said it will lead to the EPA rejecting actions that would impose “relatively minor costs” on polluting industries that could result in “massive benefits” to public health, according to a letter sent to the EPA on Thursday and obtained by ABC News.
“The only beneficiaries will be polluting industries, many of which are among President Trump’s largest donors,” the senators wrote.
Led by Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works Ranking Member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., the senators are requesting documents and information about how EPA made this determination by Feb. 26.
The decision to not quantify the health benefits of environmental regulations is “completely unsupported” and “a very stark departure” from the way the EPA has worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations over the last several decades, said Richard L. Revesz, dean emeritus at the New York University School of Law who specializes in environmental and regulatory law and policy.
The regulatory impact analysis does not cite any science or economics and did not allow for public comments, Revesz told ABC News. The approach was also not submitted to the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, “which is standard,” nor was it submitted for peer review, he added.
“Each of those things are necessary elements for changing scientific policies like this, and EPA violated every single one of them,” Revesz said.
Senate democrats are seeking the basis on which the EPA made the decision; what the EPA willl take into account when undertaking Clean Air Act rulemaking; whether the EPA has discussed ceasing to quantify health effects of other pollutants; and whether the EPA consulted with any third parties, including the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Surgeon General, public health experts and interested civil society groups.
It was industry executives who pushed for benefit-cost analysis during Ronald Reagan’s administration in the 1980s, said Janet McCabe, visiting professor at Indiana University’s McKinney School of Law and former deputy administrator of the EPA between 2021 and 2024. In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12866, which instructs each agency to perform rigorous cost benefit analysis for any rule or regulation to be implemented.
“There’s a whole field of environmental economics where models and analytical methods and data collection have evolved on both the cost and the benefit side to help decision-makers and the public understand,” McCabe told ABC News.
While the EPA points to uncertainties in the estimates, assigning a number to monetize health benefits is “very defensible” because of the vast number of studies that allow economists to estimate ranges of health impacts in terms of monetary value, McCabe said.
In the past, when the EPA felt like it could not rigorously assign a number to either cost or health benefit, “it would say so,” McCabe said.
The EPA has received the letter and will respond through the proper channels, an EPA spokesperson told ABC News.
PM2.5 and ozone — soot and smog — are two of the most dangerous and widespread pollutants in the U.S., according to health and environmental policy experts. They are produced by a number of sources, including emissions from vehicles, power plants, the agriculture industry and oil refineries.
The agency is still considering the impacts that fine particulate matter and ozone emissions have on human health, like it “always has,” but that it will not be monetizing the impacts “at this time,” an EPA spokesperson told ABC News last month.
“EPA is fully committed to its core mission of protecting human health and the environment by relying on gold standard science, not the approval of so-called environmental groups that are funded by far-left activists,” the EPA spokesperson said.
The new EPA rule could prove dangerous to human health in the future because it will make it easier for the Trump administration to weaken air pollution controls, the experts who spoke with ABC News said. The EPA will only have the cost to industry to consider when making policy decisions without factoring in the benefits to health, the experts said.
“There will be nothing on the health side to balance them,” McCabe said. “That will make rules much easier to justify from a cost benefit perspective, because all you will see is the costs.”
In its regulatory impact analysis published in January 2024, the EPA calculated the benefit avoided morbidities and premature death in the year 2032 as worth between $22 billion and $46 billion. In February 2024, when the EPA tightened the amount of PM2.5 that could be emitted by industrial facilities, it estimated that the rule would prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths by 2032.
This data will no longer be considered under the new rule.
“It’s not even estimating how many deaths that is, even though the models for doing both things have been very well established for a long, long time,” Revesz said.
Brianna Arango is seen in an undated photo released by the Southern Methodist University Police Department. Southern Methodist University Police Department
(DALLAS) — Police are looking for a missing Texas college student, calling it a “matter of concern.”
Brianna Arango, 21, a student at Southern Methodist University, was last seen midday Thursday on the Dallas campus, according to police.
She was last seen around 12:30 p.m. near Harold Simmons Hall, according to the Southern Methodist University Police Department.
A family member contacted SMU Police at approximately 3:30 p.m. Thursday to report that Arango did not meet with them as planned earlier that afternoon, campus police said. She had a class at 1 p.m. that she also did not attend, police said.
“Based on the information available, SMU Police are actively working to locate Brianna and are treating this as a matter of concern,” the department said in an advisory.
“SMU Police are asking for the campus community’s assistance in locating her,” the advisory added.
Arango was last seen wearing a white shirt, blue sweatpants and carrying a beige tote bag, police said.
Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact SMU Police at 214-768-3388.
New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs attends his arraignment hearing at Dedham District Court on February 13, 2026. (David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
(DEDHAM, Mass.) — New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs was arraigned on charges of strangulation Friday morning.
The charges stem from a December 2025 incident in which he allegedly assaulted a private chef.
Diggs did not speak at the hearing, but his attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
The judge released him on his own recognizance and he was ordered to have no contact with the victim, including third party contact.
The incident stemmed from a dispute over wages the victim was requesting Diggs pay her, according to police records obtained by ABC News.
Diggs is accused of strangling or suffocating Mila Adams on Dec. 2, according to police records.
Diggs allegedly entered Adams’ unlocked bedroom, where they began to discuss the unpaid wages. Adams told police that during the discussion, he got angry and allegedly smacked her across the face, according to a police report.
She then tried to push him away, but then he choked her using the crook of his elbow around her neck. As she tried to pry him away, he tightened his grip, Adams told police. He then threw her on the bed, according to a police report.
When she told him she still hadn’t received her money, Diggs allegedly told her “lies,” according to the police report.
“StefonDiggscategorically denies these allegations. They are unsubstantiated, uncorroborated, and were never investigated — because they did not occur,” Diggs’ attorney David Meier said in a statement in December.“The timing and motivation for making the allegations is crystal clear:they are the direct result of an employee-employer financial dispute that was not resolved to the employee’s satisfaction.Stefonlooks forward to establishing the truth in a court of law.”
Adams told police she believes she is still owed a month of wages, according to police records.
Group Chairman & CEO, DP World Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem speaks during the 2023 Concordia Annual Summit at Sheraton New York on September 19, 2023 in New York City. Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Concordia Summit
(NEW YORK) — The billionaire CEO of logistics giant DP World has resigned following the disclosure of his communications with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, an Emirati billionaire, stepped down from the company on Friday, “effective immediately,” the massive global supply chain and logistics company said in an announcement.
The move comes after financial groups in Canada and the U.K. earlier this week announced a pause in their investments with DP World on the heels of the U.S. Justice Department’s release of Epstein files.
A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
For years, before and after Epstein became a convicted sex offender in 2008, Bin Sulayem and Epstein maintained a free-flowing exchange of emails that ran the gamut from workshopping financial proposals to rating sexual conquests, according to the DOJ files.
“Are you going to the Clinton Forum?” Epstein asked Bin Sulayem in one email exchange. “I see that the Secretary General is scheduled to attend. If so, we can go to my island after the forum. Call me so we can discuss the details.” Bin Sulayem replied that his meetings were “flexible” and could be rearranged around Epstein’s.
Later on in the exchange, Epstein wanted to know from Bin Sulayem “what time you would like your massage today in new york.”
In April 2009, Epstein emailed, “where are you? are you ok, I loved the torture video.” There is no further explanation or context of the video mentioned. Bin Sulayem said he was in China and would return in a couple of weeks. “Hope to see you,” Epstein said.
Bin Sulayem was among six names read out on the floor of the House of Representatives Tuesday by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, one of the authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, who has criticized the DOJ and Trump administration for what he and others have regarded as a lack of transparency when it comes to the Epstein files saga.
FBI Director Kash Patel released a surveillance photo, Feb. 10, 2026 showing a potential subject in investigation of the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie in Tucson, AZ. (@FBIDirectorKash/X)
(PHOENIX, Ariz.) — More information is coming to light about the unidentified person who kidnapped Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie.
The 84-year-old was taken from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the early hours of Sunday, Feb. 1. The first images of the suspect were released by the FBI this week, showing an armed person in a mask in front of Nancy Guthrie’s house, appearing to tamper with a security camera.
Although the suspect’s name remains unknown, the FBI announced Thursday that analysis of the video determined he is a man with an average build who stands at about 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall.
The FBI said the suspect was wearing a black, 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said on Thursday that “several items of evidence” have been recovered, including gloves. It’s not clear if the gloves seen on the surveillance camera were the same gloves recovered.
The FBI is offering a $100,000 reward.
Anyone with information is urged to call 911 or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4900.
Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the House Judiciary Committee, February 11, 2026 in Washington. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department’s failure this week to convince a grand jury to hand up an indictment against six members of Congress is the latest stumbling block faced by prosecutors as they seek to rebuke the administration’s perceived political opponents.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., was unable to secure an indictment against six congressmembers after President Donald Trump called for them to be arrested and tried for posting a video on social media telling military service members that they could refuse illegal orders, sources said Tuesday.
Following a classified briefing on the deadly strikes on alleged drug boats in Latin America, Sen. Mark Kelly, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Rep. Maggie Goodlander, Rep. Jason Crow, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, and Rep. Chris DeLuzio, all former members of the military and intelligence community, posted a video in November telling current members that — per the Uniform Code of Military Justice — they should refuse to carry out unlawful orders.
“Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL,” Trump posted to social media in response to the video on Nov. 20.
Prosecutors under U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro sought to convince a grand jury to indict the six lawmakers, but the panel did not comply.
It is exceedingly rare for a grand jury to not indict after prosecutors have made their presentation. In fiscal year 2016, the most recent year for which figures are available from the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, the DOJ sought federal charges against 69,451 felony defendants — and in only six cases did a grand jury return a vote of no bill, indicating a refusal to indict.
Yet the current Justice Department has faced this outcome several times in recent months while attempting to prosecute perceived foes of the president’s agenda.
“This is pretty rare for a prosecutor to want an indictment and not get one,” University of Illinois Professor Andrew Leipold, an expert on the federal judiciary system, told ABC News. “The most obvious answer is that the government is being aggressive in prosecuting federal crimes, and grand juries are simply not in agreement.”
Vice President JD Vance has said that any such actions are “driven by law and not by politics.”
After a federal judge in November dismissed the cases the Justice Department had brought against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, the DOJ again sought an indictment of the New York AG.
The move came after U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled that that the appointment of Trump’s handpicked interim U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, was unconstitutional and that Halligan acted in an “unlawful” and “ineffective” manner when she brought charges of making false statements against Comey and mortgage fraud charges against James.
Ten days after Judge Cameron’s ruling, a federal grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia, refused to indict James on the same charges when the Justice Department attempted to refile the case, according to sources.
A second grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia’s Alexandria branch then rejected the charges when the DOJ attempted to file the case for a third time.
“This unprecedented rejection makes even clearer that this case should never have seen the light of day,” James’ attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement.
Last August, D.C. prosecutors failed to secure an indictment against a man accused of throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent after video of the confrontation went viral and provoked an all-out public relations blitz from the White House and Justice Department touting his arrest and the federal assault charge against him.
Sean Charles Dunn was arrested on charges of allegedly throwing a Subway sandwich at a CBP agent who was patrolling with Metro Transit Police in northwest Washington on the night of Aug. 9, amid the Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard troops in the capital.
“You f—— fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Dunn is alleged to have shouted at the CBP officer before allegedly throwing the sandwich, which struck the officer in the chest.
Prosecutors similarly failed to convince a federal grand jury in D.C. to indict a woman who was accused by the government of assaulting an FBI agent during an inmate swap with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The U.S. attorney’s office was unable to secure an indictment against Sidney Reid despite making three separate attempts, according to court records.
ABC News’ Alexander Mallin and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
(ORANGEBURG, S.C.) — Two people were killed and one person was wounded after a shooting Thursday night on the campus of South Carolina State University, the school said.
The shooting, which was reported in an apartment at the Hugine Suites student residential complex on the Orangeburg campus, prompted a campus lockdown that remained in place hours after the shooting, according to a news release from the university.
Officials have not released any details about a suspect.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is investigating the shooting, the university said.
The university said school officials have not confirmed the victims’ identities or the condition of the wounded person.
Classes are canceled Friday, the university said.
Two shootings on the campus in October, including one at the same student housing complex, left one person dead and another wounded.
The university has a student population of about 2,800 students.
Signage at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Environmental Protection Agency has walked back a landmark environmental decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.
Calling it “the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history,” the EPA announced Thursday that it was “eliminating both the Obama-era 2009 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding and all subsequent federal GHG emission standards for all vehicles and engines of model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond.”
For more than 16 years, the EPA’s endangerment finding served as the scientific and legal foundation for federal regulations on carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The 2009 decision found that certain greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The regulations that resulted cover everything from vehicle tailpipe emissions to the release of greenhouse gases from power plants and other significant emission sources.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made the announcement in the White House, alongside President Donald Trump.
“The Endangerment Finding has been the source of 16 years of consumer choice restrictions and trillions of dollars in hidden costs for Americans,” Zeldin said in a statement after the announcement. “The Trump EPA is strictly following the letter of the law, returning commonsense to policy, delivering consumer choice to Americans and advancing the American Dream.”
The EPA said the decision would “[save] American taxpayers over $1.3 trillion,” and “restores consumer choice, makes more affordable vehicles available for American families, and decreases the cost of living on all products by lowering the cost of trucks.”
In a statement to ABC News prior to Thursday’s announcement, the EPA called the endangerment finding “one of the most damaging decisions in modern history,” adding, “in the intervening years, hardworking families and small businesses have paid the price as a result.”
Some climate scientists and policy experts say the agency’s decision to repeal the finding, even just for cars and trucks, could significantly affect U.S. efforts to address human-amplified climate change. The EPA calculates that the transportation sector is the largest contributor of direct greenhouse gas emissions in the country, with cars and trucks accounting for more 75% of those emissions.
“This is taking away the principal federal authority to regulate greenhouse gases. All of the federal regulations under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases depend on the endangerment finding. If it’s wiped out, none of those regulations exist,” said Michael Gerrard, a professor at Columbia Law School and the faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
Gerrard said the immediate impact of the EPA’s decision will be somewhat muted by the fact that the Trump administration has already revoked most regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. These include greenhouse gas emission limits on passenger vehicles, emission controls on fossil fuel-powered power plants, and controls on methane leakage from oil and gas wells.
“But this action attempts to be the nail in the coffin of all those regulations, at least for the balance of the Trump administration,” Gerrard added.
Saying the decision “amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,” the Trump administration estimates the move will save Americans $1.3 trillion, primarily by reducing the cost of cars and trucks. The EPA said consumers will save more than $2,400 on the purchase of a new vehicle.
But Lou Leonard, dean of Clark University’s School of Climate, Environment, and Society, says the repeal could also result in companies facing more financial and legal challenges.
“It’s going to expose, particularly businesses that are very fossil fuel intensive, to legal claims that they might not have otherwise been exposed to,” said Leonard.
“When the EPA vacates the space legally and says we’re not going to regulate, we’re out of this game, then that not only creates room for other state and local governments to do their regulation, but it also creates room for legal claims against companies for not acting on climate, because they can’t say, well, we’re just following the regulations that the federal government has created,” he added.
“The EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding triggered a trillion-dollar regulatory cascade that Congress never authorized,” the conservative nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation said in a statement to ABC News. “What began as authority to address regional smog and acid rain has been stretched to vehicle emissions, power plants, oil and gas operations, and federal lands – reshaping America’s entire energy economy and ability to harness natural resources through administrative fiat.”
The EPA’s expected repeal of the 2009 finding “restores the principle that decisions of this magnitude require clear congressional authorization, not bureaucratic improvisation,” the statement continued.
A widely anticipated decision
The announcement from the administration was widely anticipated; the Trump administration has made the endangerment finding’s review a priority since the first day of Trump’s second term.
On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled “Unleashing American Energy” that required the head of the EPA to work with other agencies to “submit joint recommendations to the Director of OMB on the legality and continuing applicability of the Administrator’s findings” regarding the endangerment finding. The order gave them 30 days to respond.
Then, in March, the EPA announced more than two dozen policy recommendations aimed at rolling back environmental protections and eliminating a series of climate change regulations, including plans to “formally reconsider the endangerment finding.”
In a statement at the time, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin wrote, “The Trump Administration will not sacrifice national prosperity, energy security, and the freedom of our people for an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas. We will follow the science, the law, and common sense wherever it leads, and we will do so while advancing our commitment towards helping to deliver cleaner, healthier, and safer air, land, and water.”
As part of the March announcement, the agency released a fact sheet about the endangerment finding, describing it as “the first step in the Obama-Biden Administration’s (and later the Biden-Harris Administration’s) overreaching climate agenda” and stating that it has cost the country trillions of dollars.
The EPA announced its proposal to rescind the endangerment finding in late July 2025, citing recent Supreme Court decisions that limited the regulatory power of executive agencies and arguing that the Obama administration misinterpreted Congress’s intent when it passed the Clean Air Act.
The Supreme Court case that led to the endangerment finding
The endangerment finding stems from the 2007 Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases from motor vehicles under the 1970 Clean Air Act because those gases are air pollutants.
That ruling became the legal foundation for many of the federal government’s greenhouse gas emissions regulations for vehicles, fossil-fuel power plants, and other sources of pollution responsible for climate change.
Writing for the court at the time, Justice John Paul Stevens said, “If EPA makes a finding of endangerment, the Clean Air Act requires the agency to regulate emissions of the deleterious pollutant from new motor vehicles.”
“Under the clear terms of the Clean Air Act, EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do,” Stevens added.
In 2009, the head of the EPA made a landmark environmental decision. Lisa P. Jackson, appointed by President Barack Obama to lead the agency, determined that the current and projected concentrations of six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, “endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.” Her decision, based on a nearly 200-page EPA analysis of the science, more than 380,000 public comments and two public hearings, became what is now known as the “endangerment finding.”
Critics of decision say the underlying science is even stronger today
Critics of the administration’s plan to rescind the finding argue that the science linking greenhouse gas emissions to climate change is even stronger today than when the endangerment finding was established in 2009. They argue that the repeal lacks both a scientific basis and a legal foundation and will exacerbate the harmful impacts of climate change. Some are already promising to fight the decision in court.
“The Trump administration justifies this assault on science and our health by falsely claiming that U.S. climate-heating pollution doesn’t matter and that it lacks the authority to cut it. That’s a lie, and any 6-year-old knows it’s wrong to lie,” said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign, in a statement to ABC News.
“The United States is the second-largest carbon polluter in the world after China, and the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases. The U.S. emitted 11% of the world’s greenhouse gases in 2021, and during Trump’s first term his administration admitted that emissions in excess of 3% were ‘significant,’” he added.
“EPA’s own settled science shows that managing greenhouse gases is fundamental to protecting Americans. Rolling back these safeguards is a dangerous breach of responsibility to protect people, the environment, and our economy, benefitting polluters at the expense of all people,” said World Resources Institute (WRI) U.S. Director David Widawsky in a statement.
Overwhelming scientific evidence
In the more than 16 years since the EPA issued its 2009 endangerment finding, the science on how greenhouse gases impact human health has become more robust.
In response to the EPA’s request for public input, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a comprehensive independent assessment of the science behind the endangerment finding to help inform the agency’s final decision. They released their report in September, concluding the EPA’s 2009 determination was accurate and is now supported by stronger scientific evidence, with many uncertainties that existed at the time now resolved.
“[T]he evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gases is beyond scientific dispute,” the report stated.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation on such issues. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Abraham Lincoln.
Similarly, the United Nations concluded that “health and the climate are inextricably linked, and today the health of billions is endangered by the climate crisis.” The U.N. cited severe weather events, toxic air pollution, an increased risk of infectious disease outbreaks, and extreme heat as evidence that human-amplified climate change poses a significant danger to people.
In 2021, 200 leading medical journals issued a joint editorial stating that “the science is unequivocal: a global increase of 1.5° C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.”
And in 2023, the Fifth National Climate Assessment, a report that the federal government describes as providing “authoritative scientific information about climate change risks, impacts, and responses in the U.S.,” found that “climate changes are making it harder to maintain safe homes and healthy families; reliable public services; a sustainable economy; thriving ecosystems, cultures, and traditions; and strong communities.”
“This is another setback in the fight against climate change. We’re already seeing climate change having very negative impacts. It worsens flooding, heat waves, wildfires and other impacts. We’ve seen catastrophes already in the United States for all of these. We will see more,” Gerrard said.
What happens next?
A coalition of state attorneys general, including those from California, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, along with environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, has indicated they will challenge the EPA’s decision. They argue the action is unlawful because it ignores the agency’s obligations under the Clean Air Act to regulate pollutants that endanger public health and welfare.
“This action is unlawful, ignores basic science, and denies reality. We know greenhouse gases cause climate change and endanger our communities and our health – and we will not stop fighting to protect the American people from pollution,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, who are also the co-chairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance.
While the courts could overturn the repeal, Gerrard said they could also rule that the EPA needs congressional authorization for significant regulatory actions.
“If the Supreme Court says that, that would tie the hands of another president in reinstating the endangerment finding and in using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. It would not block another president from rejoining the Paris Agreement or doing lots of other things to fight climate change, but it would greatly hurt their ability to use the Clean Air Act,” said Gerrard.
Previous lawsuits challenged the endangerment finding itself, but the courts have consistently rejected those efforts. In 2012, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the endangerment finding after fossil fuel industry groups challenged the EPA’s use of scientific assessments. The court ruled that the EPA’s findings were supported by substantial evidence and that the agency had considered the scientific evidence in “a rational manner.” The following year, the Supreme Court declined to hear petitions specifically contesting the finding.
Leonard warns that it will be a “long road” to learn out how the decision plays out.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty, and we’re gonna have even more starting tomorrow or the next day, and that’s not good. It’s not good for the public health of Americans, it’s not good for the welfare of our communities, and it’s not good for the business climate and the economy in America,” said Leonard.
Community members pay respects at a “Memorial Garden” filled with flowers, photos and mementos outside the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue on July 14, 2022 in Buffalo, New York. (John Normile/Getty Images)
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Nearly four years after 10 Black people were gunned down in a racially motivated mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket, the victims’ families have reached a settlement with the firearms accessory company listed as a defendant in the case.
The Georgia-based manufacturer Mean Arms has agreed to pay $1.75 to settle a lawsuit filed in 2023, accusing the company of providing online instructions on how to remove a locking device it manufactured for AR-15-style rifles to turn the guns into assault weapons, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced.
“Today, justice looks like accountability, and we have ensured that this device will never be sold in our state again,” James, who filed the lawsuit along with the group Everytown for Gun Safety and the Giffords Law Center, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Mean Arms did not immediately respond to a request from ABC News for comment on the settlement. The company agreed to the settlement “without admitting or denying any allegations, claims, or assertions in the complaints filed in this action,” according to court papers filed in New York Supreme Court in Buffalo.
On May 14, 2022, the gunman, Payton Gendron, a self-professed white supremacist, opened fire with a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle in a Tops supermarket on Buffalo’s East Side neighborhood, killing 10 Black shoppers and injuring three other people.
According to the lawsuit, Gendron followed step-by-step instructions provided by Mean Arms to remove a device sold attached to the weapon called an MA Lock, which prevented the rifle from accepting magazines with more than 10 rounds. New York law bans the possession of assault weapons with high-capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.
The removal of the lock allowed Gendron, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, to attach a 30-round magazine and convert the gun into an illegal assault weapon that he used in the attack, according to the lawsuit.
“With a pistol grip and the high-capacity magazines, he did not have to stop to reload his weapon, and when he did reload, he could do so quickly. As a result, he was able to kill 10 people and injure three others,” according to James’ statement.
As part of the settlement, Mean Arms agreed to permanently stop selling the MA Lock in New York and, according to James, remove any statements that claim the MA Lock is legal in New York and state on all packaging that the device cannot be sold or resold in New York.
“This has not been an easy fight and no amount of money will ever make up for the loss of our loved ones, but through this courageous action and in this instance, justice has prevailed and this settlement will provide additional fuel for the fight ahead,” said Garnell Whitfield, the former Buffalo fire chief whose 86-year-old mother, Ruth Whitfield, was killed in the massacre.
Gendron pleaded guilty in November 2022 to 15 state charges, including domestic terrorism motivated by hate, murder and attempted murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Gendron is scheduled to face a federal trial this coming summer, in which he could get the death penalty if convicted.
“We will never forget and stop fighting for our 10 neighbors who were senselessly taken away from us in a tragic, racist act of terror,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement. “As we continue to help the families and community heal, I’m grateful to the Attorney General for her partnership in seeking justice for those impacted and working to keep New Yorkers safe by ensuring our nation-leading gun laws are being followed.”
