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The Morning Risk Report: Trump to Repeal Landmark Climate Finding in Huge Regulatory Rollback
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By David Smagalla | Dow Jones Risk Journal
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Good morning. The Trump administration is planning this week to repeal the Obama-era scientific finding that serves as the legal basis for federal greenhouse-gas regulation, according to U.S. officials, in the most far-reaching rollback of U.S. climate policy to date.
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The original finding: The reversal targets the 2009 “endangerment finding,” which concluded that six greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. The finding provided the legal underpinning for the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rules, which limited emissions from power plants and tightened fuel-economy standards for vehicles under the Clean Air Act.
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What the new rule does: The final rule, set to be made public later this week, removes the regulatory requirements to measure, report, certify and comply with federal greenhouse-gas emission standards for motor vehicles, and repeals associated compliance programs, credit provisions and reporting obligations for industries, according to administration officials.
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What it won’t target: It wouldn’t apply to rules governing emissions from power plants and other stationary sources such as oil-and-gas facilities, the officials said. But repealing the finding could open up the door to rolling back regulations that affect those facilities.
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Industry impact: The move is likely to be seen as a victory for the fossil-fuel industry, which for years has pushed back against federal climate regulations. The decision to repeal the endangerment finding might also create fresh uncertainty for companies with global operations, which could find themselves caught between lower environmental standards at home and a higher baseline for emissions rules abroad. A void at the federal level might prompt states to implement their own regulations, and create new legal exposure for companies.
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Content from our sponsor: Deloitte
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5 Areas to Watch in a Potentially Watershed Year for Bank Regs, Supervision
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Capital reform and tailored supervision could free capital and reduce challenges for some, while creating new planning complexity as requirements shift by size, activity, and risk profile. Read More
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The Justice Department suit to enforce the Cfius order is the first ever filed in the 41-year history of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
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U.S. files Cfius suit to force Chinese divestiture.
The Trump administration has sued in federal court to enforce a national security order requiring a Chinese technology company to sell a California-based subsidiary, a legal first, reports Risk Journal’s Richard Vanderford.
The Justice Department said Tuesday it filed an action in federal court in Washington, D.C. aimed at forcing Beijing-based Suirui Group to sell off Jupiter Systems, a maker of video-wall technology.
Background: President Trump in July ordered Suirui, which owns Hayward, Calif.-based Jupiter through a Hong Kong-based unit, to divest its interest in the company. Trump made his order on the recommendation of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews mergers for national security concerns.
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A bitcoin blunder for the ages: $40 billion accidentally given away.
The hundreds of prize payouts were mostly just a few bucks each, part of a promotional campaign by a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange. The total reward pot: 620,000 Korean won, or about $425.
Then came a colossal mistake. A staffer for Bithumb, South Korea’s No. 2 crypto exchange, didn’t distribute 620,000 Korean won. Rather, the prizes, due to an input error, emerged in a different currency: 620,000 bitcoins, valued at more than $40 billion.
Impact: The company has since said it has reversed the transactions or had recipients voluntarily return more than 99% of the misdistributed bitcoins. The debacle has landed Bithumb—a trusted name in one of the world’s most active retail crypto markets—in a self-inflicted crisis, with lawmakers calling for tighter laws.
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The European Union approved Google’s $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity startup Wiz, a win for the Alphabet unit’s largest-ever takeover.
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President Donald Trump said he’s ready to maintain his tariffs through other avenues, as he talked about the possibility of the Supreme Court ruling against those import taxes.
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Carbon-removal projects significantly underdelivered in 2025, according to a new report, as worries over technological readiness and funding hit the nascent sector.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration refused to review Moderna’s application to sell a new seasonal flu vaccine.
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A United Nations carbon-offsetting program for airlines known as Corsia has everything that one might expect would repel the Trump administration. But behind the scenes at least, the president’s team has backed the rollout of the initiative that calls for the use of sustainable aviation fuel and carbon credits.
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Tai Lopez told his followers they could get rich investing in dying retail brands. The Securities and Exchange Commission says it was a Ponzi scheme, and the FBI is investigating.
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The U.K. warned university leaders and political parties about foreign interference in their work, announcing a new reporting system backed by £3 million, about $4.1 million, to help institutions flag threats directly to security services, according to Risk Journal.
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The U.S. seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker earlier this month in the North Atlantic. Photo: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images
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U.S. weighs seizing tankers carrying Iranian oil to pressure Tehran.
Trump administration officials have discussed whether to seize additional tankers involved in transporting Iranian oil but have held off, concerned about Tehran’s near-certain retaliation and the impact on global oil markets, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. has seized several ships that have carried Iranian oil as part of its two-month-old blockade of sanctioned tankers serving Venezuela. The tankers, which make up the so-called shadow fleet, help transport illicit oil from numerous sanctioned countries to China and other buyers.
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Canada’s Carney tries to resolve Trump demands over new bridge.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada and the Trump administration would work to resolve a dispute over a new bridge connecting the two countries, a sign of how the U.S. leader’s frequent threats might be losing their bite with some of his foreign counterparts.
Ongoing tension: The fight over the soon-to-be-opened Gordie Howe International Bridge was the third economic threat President Trump has lobbed against Canada in the span of a month, after Carney struck a limited trade pact with China and delivered a speech at Davos calling on smaller powers to fight economic coercion.
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The Trump administration dealt Ford Motor a $900 million tariff blow to close out 2025.
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The Pentagon has warned defense contractors to brace for sweeping performance reviews that will identify companies it says aren’t fulfilling their contracts, according to a message sent to the industry late last week.
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Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi secured a landslide victory in Japan’s national election after resisting China’s pressure over her Taiwan remarks.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making an urgent trip to Washington, as concern grows in Israel that the U.S. and Iran could agree to a nuclear deal that falls short of its requirements for ending the threat from Tehran.
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U.S. manufacturers face natural gas curtailments and price spikes during cold weather despite record production and exports.
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The U.S. is sending 200 troops to Nigeria to train the country’s military to fight Islamist militants, weeks after President Trump accused the West African government of failing to protect Christians from terrorist attacks, an American military official said Tuesday.
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$4.8 Billion
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Last week's estimated weekly trading volume on prediction-market platforms Polymarket and Kalshi, according to a team of analysts at Piper Sandler, a new record. Prediction markets got a big boost to business this past weekend thanks to Super Bowl LX.
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Join us in New York on March 4 for the inaugural Dow Jones Risk Journal Summit. Speakers include Kaitlin Asrow, acting superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services; Erika Brown Lee, head of global data privacy legal, Citi; Beth Collins, chief compliance officer, Walmart; Indrani Franchini, chief compliance officer, IBM; and Kevin O’Connor, general counsel, Lockheed Martin.
Request a complimentary invitation here using the code COMPLIMENTARY. Attendance is limited, and all requests are subject to approval.
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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said he visited Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in 2012 with his wife and children, years after Lutnick said he had cut off ties with the convicted sex offender.
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Target is laying off about 500 employees as its new chief executive, Michael Fiddelke, revamps its shopping experience in an attempt to reverse declining sales.
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Vice President JD Vance posted on X acknowledging the Armenian genocide, and then deleted the post, upsetting Armenian diaspora communities in the U.S. and casting a shadow over his historic trip as the first sitting vice president to visit the country.
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OpenAI is retiring its controversial 4o AI model on Feb. 13. The 4o model, while popular for its forging of emotional connections with users, has been linked to cases of chatbot users developing psychotic delusions and is the subject of lawsuits.
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Daily life in Cuba is grinding to a halt under a U.S. campaign to block the island’s oil imports, drawing international criticism that the Trump administration is pushing the island toward a humanitarian crisis with no clear endgame.
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