The groups also challenged the administration's move to eliminate all climate rules for motor vehicles, which were repealed along with the endangerment finding.
The filing did not lay out their reasons for the challenge, but in public statements, the groups argued that the move threatens public health and the environment.
"EPA [the Environmental Protection Agency] has a duty to consider the well-being and safety of all, and the science is clear; climate change and air pollution threaten everyone's health," said Georges Benjamin, chief executive officer of the American Public Health Association, in a written statement.
"The Trump administration's reckless decision to rescind the Endangerment Finding and strip the EPA of its primary authority to regulate greenhouse gases will have disastrous consequences for the American people, our health, and our shared future," said Joanne Spalding, director of the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program, in a written statement.
The Trump administration announced it would repeal the finding last week, arguing that it "severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers."
In response to the lawsuit, an EPA spokesperson said that the agency feels the Clean Air Act "does not provide EPA statutory authority to prescribe motor vehicle emission standards for the purpose of addressing global climate change concerns."
"In the absence of such authority, the Endangerment Finding is not valid, and EPA cannot retain the regulations that resulted from it," the spokesperson said.
The endangerment finding underpinned climate regulations, providing a legal basis for such rules.
The Clean Air Act requires the EPA administrator to regulate motor vehicle emissions of any pollutant that "in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare."
The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that planet-warming emissions fall under the law's definition of air pollutants and should be regulated if they're found to be a threat to public health.
Read more at TheHill.com.
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