May 20, 2026: Youth Petitioners File Motion for Stay at D.C. Circuit of Appeals

The youth petitioners filed a motion for stay in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, asking the court to pause the EPA’s Repeal Rule, which rescinded the 2009 Endangerment Finding and eliminated all greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles, while their constitutional petition is litigated on the merits. 

The youth petitioners are the only petitioners in the Endangerment Finding docket to have formally requested a stay from EPA. EPA denied that request, prompting today's motion. 

The motion argues that without a stay, car manufacturers are already making fleet and model decisions based on the Repeal Rule that will lock in more gas-powered vehicles for at least the next 15 years, decisions that cannot be undone even if the petitioners ultimately prevail. The petitioners also assert immediate and ongoing harm to their health, religious practices, and constitutional rights. 

This motion is backed by 18 declarations from petitioners, their parents, and leading experts in pediatrics, climate science, transportation, energy, history, and the costs of pollution on the public. Together they document the immediate, specific, and irreversible harms the Repeal Rule is already causing to children's health, development, religious practices, and constitutional rights, and just how long the government has known about the harms of fossil fuel pollution. 

Read our press release here.