The Push & the Pushback: Why the Courts and States Are the New Front Line for Climate Policy

Two weeks ago we wrote that the U.S. sustainability agenda is decentralizing — moving from Washington to courtrooms, statehouses, and corporate boardrooms. This issue’s Top Stories make the case even harder to ignore. The federal government took what may be its most sweeping climate rollback yet, and within days the response came from every direction: a major state legislature, a coalition of health and environmental organizations, and Republican attorneys general staking out their own ground on corporate sustainability. The common thread isn’t partisan — it’s jurisdictional. The question is no longer whether climate policy moves forward, but who gets to set the terms.

On February 12, the Trump administration repealed the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding — the legal determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. For 17 years this finding was the foundation for virtually every federal climate regulation under the Clean Air Act.

As reported by Sustainability Online, less than a week later a broad coalition — including the American Lung Association, Sierra Club, NRDC, Environmental Defense Fund, and Physicians for Social Responsibility — filed suit in the D.C. Circuit, arguing the repeal violates the Clean Air Act and ignores nearly two decades of strengthening scientific evidence. This case will almost certainly define the boundaries of federal climate authority for years to come — and some observers believe the administration may be deliberately seeking a Supreme Court showdown.

Meanwhile, ESG Today reported that the New York State Senate passed the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act on a 40-22 vote. The Act, modeled closely on California’s SB 253 bill, will requires companies with more than $1 billion in revenue to report Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions annually. The bill now moves to the Assembly and Governor Hochul’s desk. The timing matters: the EPA proposed ending its own federal Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program just months ago, and New York is stepping directly into that gap. If signed, it would make New York the second state to mandate comprehensive corporate emissions disclosure, reinforcing a pattern we flagged last issue — when federal action retreats, state-level action accelerates.

Not all state-level action is pushing in the same direction. ESG Today reports that a coalition of ten Republican attorneys general, led by Florida’s James Uthmeier, sent letters to nearly 80 companies warning that participation in sustainable packaging groups — including the U.S. Plastics Pact and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition — could expose them to antitrust liability. Legal scholars dispute this, and the targeted organizations say their activities, which include developing standards for sustainable packaging, are lawful.

Regardless of the political crosswinds, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) packaging compliance is already the law in multiple states — and the operational demands are real. Also in our Top Stories, G&A Institute’s latest blog walks companies through the practical steps of preparing packaging data for EPR reporting, building on our recent resource paper examining the rapid expansion of EPR legislation nationwide. For companies placing packaged goods on the U.S. market, this is no longer a future risk — it’s a current obligation.

The short-term story this week is messy and more complex than a simple rollback narrative. Federal climate authority is being challenged in court, some states are writing their own climate disclosure rules, and other states are trying to penalize companies for voluntarily pursuing sustainability goals. The G&A team continues to closely track these developments, along with international news from ISO’s new global climate adaptation standard to the EU’s evolving CSRD framework. We are available to work with you to develop and implement sustainability reporting programs that will stand the test of time. Reach out to us at info@ga-institute.com.