February 19, 2026: The Colbert/Talarico/FCC/CBS Drama Explained, EPA Repeals "Endangerment Finding," Explaining the SAVE American Act Voter Registration Requirements, and More.
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Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Thursday, February 19th, and it is the last episode until Unbiased University starts on Monday. So I will officially be starting maternity leave on Monday, which sadly means that this will be the last news episode for the foreseeable future. The good news is that I will be back, okay? I'm not leaving you forever. I promise I will be back. I just obviously need to take some time to get acclimated to this new phase of life that I'm entering into. And then the other good thing is that you get to attend Unbiased University for the next eight weeks, which will be so, so, so, so, so valuable.
I cannot emphasize enough how excited I am for for just how much you are going to learn. And I'm even more excited because when I get back from maternity leave, you are going to have so much knowledge about all of these concepts that are in the background of every single news story that we talk about. So throughout Unbiased University, you'll learn about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the three branches of government, the Supreme Court, the hidden power players in Washington, so many different things. So a lot to look forward to. I am just as sad as you that I won't be here on the mic twice a week telling you about the news, but I'll be back before you know it. And in the interim, you're going to learn so much.
So that's the deal with that. In today's episode, we're going to talk about some of the bigger stories from the last week or so. We'll do quick hitters. Rumor has it. And then before I finish the episode, I'll leave you with some nonpartisan news sources that you can keep up with while I'm on maternity leave. So let's start with the first story, which is that last week, shortly after Thursday's episode went live, the EPA announced the finalization of a rule overturning the agency's 2009 endangerment finding. Now, in order to understand what this repeal means and what its effects will be, we have to discuss what the endangerment finding is and where it came from. So we have to back up to 2007 when the Supreme Court decided a case called Massachusetts versus EPA.
And in that case, what the court held. was that greenhouse gases are air pollutants that are covered by the Clean Air Act and that the EPA administrator has to determine whether or not emissions of greenhouse gases from new cars specifically cause or contribute to air pollution that might reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare or not. Or, on the other hand, the EPA can decide whether the science is just too uncertain to make a reasoned decision. But the EPA had to come to some sort of finding. So in response to that Supreme Court decision in December 2009, the EPA administrator signed off on on an endangerment finding and then also a cause or contribute finding. So two separate findings, actually.
And the endangerment finding found that the current and projected concentrations of six greenhouse gases threaten public health and the welfare of current and future generations. And therefore, these greenhouse gases require regulation. Because under Section 202A of the Clean Air Act, once the EPA determines that a pollutant endangers public health, the agency is legally required to regulate emissions of that pollutant from new cars and trucks. That's Section 202A of the Clean Air Act. It specifically applies to cars and trucks. And the six greenhouse gases listed in that endangerment finding included carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, HFCs, PFCs, and sulfur hexafluoride. The cause or contribute finding found that the combined emissions of these greenhouse gases from new cars and new car engines contribute to the greenhouse gas pollution that threatens public health and welfare.
So Technically two separate findings, but they both play into each other. Now, the findings themselves did not impose any new requirements on industries or businesses, but what it did do is it served as the prerequisite or the legal foundation for implementing
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