The Trump administration's repeal of an Obama-era scientific finding that greenhouse gases pose a public health threat could open up a new pathway for filing lawsuits against power-plant operators and other companies. Legal experts said the policy reversal could lead to a surge in lawsuits known as "public nuisance" actions, a pathway that had been blocked following a 2011 Supreme Court ruling that regulation of greenhouse gas emissions should be left in the hands of the Environmental Protection Agency instead of the courts. Now that the EPA has abandoned that regulatory effort, the legal shield created by the 2011 decision will likely unravel, legal experts said. "This may be another classic case where overreach by the Trump administration comes back to bite it," said Robert Percival, a University of Maryland environmental law professor. The Environmental Protection Agency on Feb. 12 repealed a 2009 scientific determination known as the endangerment finding, which has been the foundation for federal climate regulations. The endangerment finding is what led the EPA to take action under the Clean Air Act of 1963 to curb emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and four other heat-trapping air pollutants from vehicles, power plants and other industries. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has called the rescission of the endangerment finding "the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States." Power companies have generally favored President Donald Trump's deregulatory agenda, but have expressed concern about the repeal of the endangerment finding triggering a wave of lawsuits. The Edison Electric Institute, which represents publicly traded electric utilities, said in September that rescinding the endangerment finding comes with the "potential for increased litigation alleging common-law claims, regardless of the merits of those suits." 'NEW FRONT' OPENING U.S. courts have long recognized a legal theory known as "public nuisance," which prohibits activities that unreasonably interfere with the health and safety of a community. Public nuisance lawsuits are typically brought by state and local governments, and seek to make the party responsible for the nuisance pay to abate, or fix, the condition. The cases are hard to win, in part because of difficulties in proving direct causation between a specific defendant's emissions and particular climate harms. But legal experts have said they are one potential tool for environmental activists to hold greenhouse gas emitters liable for climate harms. In a 2004 lawsuit, California and five other states alleged that big power companies had created a public nuisance by contributing to climate change. The defendants included American Electric Power and Xcel Energy. The case eventually ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against the six states in a unanimous 2011 decision. Writing for the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said regulating greenhouse gases should be left to EPA under the Clean Air Act. That law and subsequent EPA actions like the endangerment finding, Ginsburg wrote, "displace the claims the plaintiffs seek to pursue." That 2011 decision allowed power companies to escape public nuisance lawsuits filed in federal courts, though some cases brought in state court have survived. The policy reversal could give public nuisance cases a new lease on life, legal experts said. "This has the potential to change the stakes of the game," said University of Pennsylvania law professor Sarah Light. "If the Clean Air Act no longer applies to greenhouse gas emissions, then there's no comprehensive statutory scheme in which Congress intended to displace nuisance claims, so they would likely be able to proceed in court." Jenner & Block environmental lawyer Meghan Greenfield agreed that a "new front" for lawsuits may be opening up. "This is an area where things had been settled for the past 15 years, and, especially as the EPA steps out of this space for regulation, you can imagine others wanting to push those fronts ever harder," Greenfield said.

The Justice Department moved to fire the new U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York on Feb. 11, the same day that federal judges unveiled his appointment to replace a prosecutor allied with President Donald Trump's administration. Trump has drawn criticism from rights and political experts for what they call his administration's targeting of political opponents in efforts that have faced legal challenges and protests. In a ceremony on Feb. 11, the Northern District of New York Board of Judges appointed Donald Kinsella to replace John Sarcone, who had been serving on an acting basis and was disqualified by a court. "You are fired, Donald Kinsella," Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote on X. "Judges don't pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does." Kinsella, who could not immediately be reached for comment, has decades of experience in criminal and civil litigation and was previously an assistant U.S. attorney and the criminal chief of the Justice Department. Last month a federal judge ruled that Sarcone was unlawfully serving as the top federal prosecutor in the state's capital of Albany, and blocked his involvement in an investigation of state Attorney General Letitia James. On Feb. 11, the department's website showed him listed as the "first assistant U.S. attorney". The DOJ used a series of procedural maneuvers to retain Sarcone as acting U.S. attorney for the northern district after a federal court declined to extend his 120-day interim appointment. Those moves were found to be unlawful in court, similar to other court rulings that rejected appointments in California, Nevada and New Jersey. The Trump administration has particularly targeted James, an elected Democrat and one of the Republican president's top political antagonists, who has said investigations against her are payback for suing Trump's family business.

A grand jury has rejected an attempt by the Justice Department of President Donald Trump's administration to indict some Democratic U.S. lawmakers after they urged members of the military not to comply with unlawful orders, a source familiar with the matter said late on Feb. 10. Late last year, Trump, a Republican, assailed the Democratic lawmakers who told members of the U.S. military in a video that they must refuse any illegal orders. Trump called them traitors who could face execution. The six Democratic lawmakers in the video included Senator Elise Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and Iraq war veteran, Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy veteran, as well as U.S. Representatives Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan. Prosecutors sought to charge the lawmakers with violating a federal law barring interference with the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the U.S. armed forces, the source said, asking not to be identified. The indictment was pursued by the office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro. The grand jury decision was reported earlier by NBC News and the New York Times. The Democrats criticized the attempt to indict them. "Today, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro attempted to persuade a Grand Jury to indict me. This was in response to me organizing a 90-second video that simply quoted the law," Slotkin said on social media website X. "Today, it was a grand jury of anonymous American citizens who upheld the rule of law and determined this case should not proceed," she said. The U.S. Justice Department had no immediate comment. "This is an outrageous abuse of power by Donald Trump and his lackies. It wasn't enough for (Pentagon chief) Pete Hegseth to censure me and threaten to demote me, now it appears they tried to have me charged with a crime — all because of something I said that they didn't like," Kelly said in his own statement on X. Deluzio also said on X he "will not be intimidated for a single second by the Trump Administration or Justice Department lawyers who tried and failed to indict me today." Representative Crow expressed similar sentiments. The video from the Democratic lawmakers came during criticism of Trump's decisions to deploy the National Guard in U.S. cities and authorize lethal strikes on boats suspected of smuggling drugs from Latin America. Trump has faced criticism from rights experts over what they categorize as his administration's targeting of political opponents and deployment of federal agents and National Guard troops in cities governed by Democrats. Trump's attempts have faced legal challenges and street protests.