Analysis of: Trump touts climate savings but new rule set to push up US prices
The Guardian | February 15, 2026
TL;DR
Trump's climate rollback will cost Americans $200 billion more than it saves—by the administration's own numbers. The policy delivers profits to fossil fuel billionaires while working-class families pay higher gas prices and bear climate costs.
Analytical Focus:Class Analysis Contradictions Material Conditions
The Trump administration's repeal of the endangerment finding—the legal foundation for federal climate regulations—reveals a stark contradiction between populist rhetoric and material outcomes. While presented as a cost-saving measure for ordinary Americans, the administration's own regulatory impact analysis shows the policy will impose $1.5 trillion in costs against $1.3 trillion in savings through 2055. The $200 billion net loss falls disproportionately on working-class households through higher gasoline prices (projected 75 cents per gallon increase by 2050), increased vehicle maintenance costs, and unaccounted health and climate impacts that could reach $4.7 trillion. The class dynamics are transparent: the policy's primary beneficiaries are fossil fuel corporations and their wealthy owners—many of whom are Trump donors—while costs are socialized onto workers, communities of color, and vulnerable populations who bear the brunt of pollution and climate disruption. The EPA spokesperson's framing of climate policy as 'agenda-driven zealotry' that 'bypasses Congress and the will of the people' performs a remarkable ideological inversion, positioning corporate deregulation as democratic populism while dismissing public health protections as elite overreach. This policy exemplifies the contradictions of neoliberal governance: the state claims to serve 'the American people' while structurally prioritizing capital accumulation. The administration's reliance on an unrealistic 'low fuel price scenario'—based on EIA data never intended to model policy effects—exposes how regulatory analysis can be manipulated to manufacture consent for policies that serve narrow class interests. The material reality is that ending greenhouse gas standards transfers wealth upward while externalizing costs onto those least equipped to bear them.
Class Dynamics
Actors: Fossil fuel industry executives and shareholders, Trump administration officials, Working-class vehicle owners and commuters, Environmental advocacy organizations, Communities of color and environmental justice populations
Beneficiaries: Fossil fuel corporations (reduced regulatory burden), Oil industry donors to Trump administration, Auto manufacturers (lower compliance costs), Wealthy shareholders in carbon-intensive industries
Harmed Parties: Working-class households (higher fuel and maintenance costs), Communities of color (disproportionate pollution exposure), Future generations (climate costs), Electric vehicle industry workers, Public health (increased air pollution)
The policy demonstrates capital's capture of state regulatory apparatus. Fossil fuel interests, backed by substantial political donations, successfully deployed the administrative state to socialize costs onto workers while privatizing benefits. The EPA—ostensibly a public health agency—now explicitly prioritizes industry cost reduction over population welfare. Environmental justice advocates and working-class communities lack equivalent access to shape policy, despite bearing concentrated harms.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: $1.5 trillion in projected costs vs. $1.3 trillion savings, 75 cents per gallon gasoline price increase by 2050, $4.7 trillion in unaccounted climate and health costs, Reduced EV infrastructure investment, Increased vehicle maintenance and repair costs
The policy protects fossil fuel extraction and combustion as the dominant energy production model, preserving the profit streams of existing capital investments in oil infrastructure while undermining the transition to electric vehicles. The $200 billion in 'savings' from reduced EV purchases represents a direct subsidy to petroleum-based transportation, maintaining workers' dependence on gasoline markets controlled by concentrated corporate interests. Workers face higher operating costs for the vehicles they need for employment, effectively reducing real wages.
Resources at Stake: Fossil fuel reserves and extraction rights, Electric vehicle market share, Charging infrastructure investments, Clean air and climate stability as public goods, Workers' disposable income (fuel costs)
Historical Context
Precedents: Reagan-era EPA rollbacks and deregulation, Bush administration weakening of Clean Air Act enforcement, Corporate capture of regulatory agencies throughout neoliberal period, Historical pattern of externalizing industrial costs onto workers and communities
This policy represents the continuation of four decades of neoliberal governance in which the state systematically transfers costs from capital to labor while maintaining rhetorical commitment to 'the people.' The endangerment finding repeal follows the established pattern of using administrative procedures to achieve deregulation that would face legislative resistance. The framing of environmental protection as 'overreach' echoes Reagan's anti-government rhetoric, positioning corporate freedom as individual liberty while obscuring the class character of who benefits and who pays.
Contradictions
Primary: The administration promises to lower costs for working Americans while implementing a policy its own analysis shows will increase their expenses by hundreds of billions of dollars. This contradiction between populist rhetoric and material outcomes is structural to neoliberal governance.
Secondary: The EPA, tasked with environmental protection, actively dismantling environmental protections, Claims of 'following the law' while repealing legal foundations for regulation, Framing corporate deregulation as democratic will while serving concentrated donor interests, Short-term capital gains versus long-term climate costs that will ultimately destabilize capital accumulation itself
These contradictions are likely to intensify as material costs become undeniable. Rising gasoline prices, worsening climate impacts, and health consequences will create conditions for renewed working-class mobilization around environmental justice. However, capital may attempt to manage these contradictions through further ideological work (blaming foreign actors for fuel prices) or targeted relief programs that preserve the underlying accumulation structure. The fundamental contradiction between private appropriation and social costs cannot be resolved within the capitalist framework.
Global Interconnections
This domestic policy connects to global dynamics of fossil fuel dependency and climate imperialism. The United States, as the world's largest historical emitter, is effectively externalizing climate costs onto the Global South, where climate impacts are most severe but adaptive capacity is lowest. The policy also reflects competition between fossil fuel capital and emerging clean energy capital, with the state intervening on behalf of established interests threatened by energy transition. The reliance on global oil markets—acknowledged in the EIA scenario discussion—reveals that domestic 'energy independence' rhetoric masks continued integration into volatile international commodity markets controlled by OPEC and multinational corporations. American workers' fuel costs remain subject to geopolitical forces beyond their control, while the policy forecloses domestic alternatives that could provide genuine energy security through renewable production.
Conclusion
The endangerment finding repeal crystallizes a fundamental truth: under capitalist governance, the state serves capital accumulation while performing service to 'the people.' Working-class resistance must connect immediate concerns—higher fuel prices, worsening air quality—to the structural critique of whose interests shape policy. Environmental justice organizing, labor mobilization around just transition, and exposing the class character of climate policy offer pathways for building consciousness and power. The administration's own data provides ammunition: workers are being asked to pay $200 billion extra so fossil fuel executives can profit. Making this class transfer visible is essential political work.
Suggested Reading
- Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel (2020) Hickel's analysis of how capitalist growth imperatives drive ecological destruction directly illuminates why the administration prioritizes fossil fuel profits over climate stability, and offers frameworks for understanding environmental crisis as a class issue.
- The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (2007) Klein's documentation of how crises are manufactured to justify policies serving corporate interests over public welfare provides historical context for understanding regulatory rollbacks as deliberate wealth transfers.
- The State and Revolution by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of the state as an instrument of class rule helps explain why the EPA—nominally a public health agency—can be captured to serve fossil fuel interests against the populations it is meant to protect.