Statement on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Revocation of the Endangerment Finding on the Dangers of Greenhouse Gases
Contacts:
Julia Olson, Chief Legal Counsel, 415.786.4825, julia@ourchildrenstrust.org
Helen Britto, Comms. Associate Director, 925.588.1171, helen@ourchildrenstrust.org
Nicole Funaro, Media Relations Strategist, nfunaro@publicjustice.net
Today, the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revoked its 2009 endangerment finding, striking down the agency’s longstanding science-based conclusion that greenhouse gases endanger the public health of Americans. The move eliminates the U.S. government’s role in limiting greenhouse gas pollution and dismantles the legal foundation it has to act on climate change under the Clean Air Act. EPA administrator Zeldin also announced that all GHG emissions limitations on vehicles are also eliminated.
Daniel Snyder, director of the Environmental Enforcement Project at Public Justice, said:
“The U.S. Constitution guarantees that no person be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law. The right to life and liberty are among our most fundamental of rights. The Trump Administration’s decision to repeal the Endangerment Finding — which provides the legal and scientific foundation for the government to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — is a direct assault on the very rights upon which our country was founded.
The repeal will substantially exacerbate the harmful effects of climate change — wrought by greenhouse gas pollution — that is a clear and present danger to public health. More troubling, it directly harms our nation’s youth, placing the brunt of the environmental and health costs of this misguided action on the backs of our children and future generations. This is why we’re challenging the Trump administration’s unlawful actions with a citizen-led suit and fighting to stop a government that can and will create irreversible damage to our planet and the very people they are supposed to serve.”
Julia Olson, lead attorney for the plaintiffs and Chief Legal Counsel at Our Children’s Trust, said:
“The Trump administration’s repeal of the Endangerment Finding for climate pollution is a direct assault on children’s most fundamental constitutional rights—including their rights to life, liberty, health, and safety. The Endangerment Finding is the scientific and legal cornerstone of limiting pollution that cars and trucks can emit, limits EPA is also gutting.
The bottom line—this decision today, if not stopped, will spew more toxic air from tailpipes into children’s lungs, create more dangerous smog in communities across the country, cause more extreme heat, fires and floods, and make the cost of driving in America more expensive and more harmful to everyone’s children. Every parent and grandparent, and everyone who cares about breathing clean air, should be outraged that this administration is dead set on using the power of the government to make our air less healthy and our climate system more dangerous. EPA has no power under the rule of law to do what it is doing.
Our Children’s Trust will file a petition on behalf of youth in the D.C. Circuit to reverse this unlawful action as unconstitutional. The Clean Air Act requires EPA to rely on the best available science to protect public health and welfare and control pollution, not unleash it. Abandoning the Endangerment Finding violates EPA’s mandate from Congress and transgresses constitutional protections that safeguard children from government-created danger.
This action does not stand alone. EPA’s repeal flows directly from unlawful executive orders that mandate the expansion of fossil fuels and the dismantling of climate safeguards. Those directives are already being challenged by 22 young Americans in Lighthiser v. Trump, where the Endangerment Finding is squarely at issue. The federal government cannot lawfully command agencies to accelerate fossil fuel pollution while ignoring the constitutional rights of the very generation that will bear the worst consequences.
We will continue to defend young people’s constitutional rights and hold the federal government accountable to science, the Clean Air Act, and the Constitution.”
# # #
Our Children’s Trust was founded in 2010 on the idea that courts are vital to democracy and empowered to protect our children and the planet. Without a stable climate system, every natural resource we rely upon to exercise our basic human rights—life, liberty, home, happiness—is under threat. Our work will be achieved when there is universal recognition of children’s climate rights by courts around the world and children’s fundamental rights to life on this planet are protected. www.ourchildrenstrust.org
Public Justice takes on the most significant systemic threats to justice of our time—abusive corporate power and predatory practices, the assault on civil rights and liberties, and the destruction of the earth’s sustainability. We link high-impact litigation with strategic communications and the strength of our partnerships to combat these abusive and discriminatory systems and achieve social and economic justice. For more information, visit www.publicjustice.net