The NYTimes reported this today:
No law requires EPA to regulate CO2.
The 2007 SCOTUS decision in Massachusetts v. EPA merely authorized EPA to regulate CO2 it if wanted… which the Obama EPA wanted to do and did.
The EPA under the next president could easily decide to no longer regulate CO2. It would first have to propose not to do it, go through the rulemaking process and then survive likely litigation. But that could happen.
Congress could also require EPA to revisit the endangerment ruling and comply with their own rules and US laws regulating major rule making studies. The endangerment ruling would fail.
Or Congress, the source of the enabling legislation, (assuming it has the guts to do so) can define what the EPA does and does not regulate. No legislation is ever written in stone. That which the Government has done it may modify or it may undo. (The most obvious example is Prohibition.) Any law passed is only permanent as long as Congress fails to act in its removal. Excessive regulations cranked out by the decree of any of these agencies remains only BECAUSE Congress fails in its duties to remove them.
Most of the ills that affect this country can be laid at Congress’s feet either by way of its failure to act in the interests of the people, or in its over actions in the interests of the few (campaign donors) over the interests of the many (US Citizens.)
Congress has become the impotent giant afraid of its own shadow, especially if that shadow conflicts with possible re-election.