In the United States, a legal battle is underway, which could determine the future of environmental regulation for decades to come. Environmental groups have filed a claim challenging the Trump administration’s repeal of the endangerment finding. This finding determined that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and established the authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officially reversed this finding in February 2026. Without it, the legal basis for all US emissions standards – for vehicles, power plants, and beyond – collapses.
Now, the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA), a powerful US lobby group whose membership includes European manufacturers Daimler Truck, Volvo Group and Traton Group, has filed a motion to intervene in that lawsuit – on the side of the Trump administration.
Stated ambitions vs. reality
These three companies publicly champion electrification, publish net-zero roadmaps, and tout science-based targets. For instance:
- Daimler: ‘From 2039 onwards, we aspire to only offer vehicles in Europe, Japan and the USA that are CO2e-free on the road.’
- Volvo: ‘Our ambition is to reach net-zero in our value chain by 2040. To do this, we have set science-based targets.’
- Traton: ‘[Our] commitment is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the value chain in line with the Paris agreement.’
Yet they are members of a trade association that is seeking to fight in court to eliminate the legal backbone of US climate regulation.
This is not only of relevance in the States. The US is one of the world’s largest heavy duty vehicle markets. What happens to its regulatory framework shapes manufacturer investment decisions globally – and the involvement of the major manufacturers in this litigation arguably does not send the signal that these companies are genuinely committed to transition.
EMA’s request to intervene as a defendant-intervenor means the truck industry is not a passive bystander – if it joins, it would be an active litigant seeking to lock in the repeal. The legal stakes of intervention are often underestimated. If EMA succeeds in joining the case, it could, by application, acquire independent standing to appeal adverse rulings – meaning that even if a future US administration wanted to restore the endangerment finding, the truck lobby could continue to block it through litigation.
Legal risks beyond the United States
This position may also pose a problem under UK and European law. For these European-headquartered companies, the most immediate potential exposure to risk concerns greenwashing. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority’s Green Claims Code requires environmental claims to be accurate, substantiated, and reflect the full picture of a company’s conduct. If a company presents itself as a climate leader in public communications, while simultaneously directing a trade association to join litigation against the legal infrastructure for GHG regulation in a major global market, this raises questions as to the integrity of those claims. That gap — between the claim and the conduct — is precisely what the Code is designed to catch.
In the EU, there is no equivalent instrument that directly captures corporate-level greenwashing by B2B companies at present — but the indirect pressure is significant. Institutional investors holding Daimler, Volvo, and Traton stock may themselves be subject to Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) obligations and funds classified under Articles 8 or 9 face real questions about whether continued investment in companies whose trade associations actively litigate against GHG regulation is consistent with their own disclosure obligations. That creates a secondary pressure pathway that is no less consequential for being one step removed.
Then there is the question of Science-Based Targets. Volvo has made a public commitment referencing the SBTi framework, which requires consistency with a 1.5°C pathway. It is genuinely difficult to reconcile that commitment with indirectly funding litigation designed to eradicate the regulatory foundations for decarbonisation in one of the world’s most consequential truck markets. SBTi commitments are not legally enforceable obligations — but they are public representations, and public representations may have consequences under greenwashing law.
When governance and strategy diverge
None of this is to say that trade association membership alone creates legal liability. However, the trade association governance gap – where companies adopt individual climate commitments while their lobby groups pursue contrary positions – is an area of rapidly increasing regulatory and investor scrutiny. CDP, institutional investors and regulators have all flagged it. The question is no longer whether the gap exists. It is whether companies will close it.
The questions that demand an answer
- Do Daimler, Volvo and Traton endorse EMA’s decision to intervene in the endangerment finding litigation in support of the Trump administration? If not, what specific steps have they taken – or will they take – to instruct EMA to withdraw?
- How do these companies reconcile EMA’s intervention with their own publicly stated science-based climate commitments – commitments that, on their face, indicate consistency with a 1.5°C pathway?
- Do they have a formal, board-level policy requiring alignment between their individual climate commitments and the lobbying positions of their trade associations? If not, why not – and does that absence itself constitute a material governance failing that investors should be asking about?
These are not rhetorical questions. They are the questions that investors, regulators and civil society are increasingly equipped – and entitled – to ask. The endangerment finding is not a technicality. It is the legal foundation upon which four decades of US environmental protection rests. Companies seeking to tear it down should be prepared to defend that position publicly, to their investors, and under the law.
