Thank you for signing!

Don’t Let The EPA Abandon Climate Protection

102 signatures toward our 30,000 goal

0.34% Complete

Sponsor: The Rainforest Site

EPA repealed the finding that supports major climate pollution rules. Communities need clean air protections restored now.

Woman wearing a face mask outdoors, covering her nose and mouth with both hands as if reacting to poor air quality.

The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule rescinding the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, the scientific and legal determination that greenhouse gas pollution threatens public health and welfare.2 EPA also repealed the greenhouse gas emission standards for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty on-highway vehicles and engines tied to that finding.2

Reuters reported that the rescission marks a major shift in U.S. climate policy. The endangerment finding had served as the foundation for federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles for more than a decade.1

Without that foundation, federal climate protections become weaker, less stable, and more vulnerable to future rollback.

Communities Face More Pollution And Climate Risk

Transportation pollution contributes to heat-trapping emissions that worsen extreme heat, wildfires, flooding, sea-level rise, air quality threats, and weather-driven disasters. These impacts fall hard on children, older adults, people with asthma, outdoor workers, low-income communities, coastal communities, and people already living with environmental burdens.

The Guardian reported that 18 young Americans filed a court motion asking for an immediate halt to EPA’s repeal, arguing that it threatens their rights to life, liberty, and religious freedom by worsening planet-warming and toxic pollution.3

Our Children’s Trust says the youth-led case, Venner v. EPA, challenges the rule that rescinded the endangerment finding and eliminated greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and trucks.4

EPA Must Return To Its Public Health Mission

CBS News reported that 17 health and environmental organizations also sued over EPA’s repeal, with groups including the American Public Health Association, American Lung Association, and Environmental Defense Fund involved in the challenge.5

EPA’s job is to protect public health and the environment. It should not abandon climate pollution safeguards while communities face intensifying heat, storms, smoke, flooding, and rising costs from climate damage.

Administrator Lee Zeldin should reverse the rescission, restore the endangerment finding, reinstate vehicle greenhouse gas standards, and preserve the agency’s authority to address climate pollution under the Clean Air Act. EPA should also conduct transparent, science-based rulemaking that accounts for real harm to public health and ecosystems.

Climate pollution is not abstract. It affects air, water, food systems, public health, wildlife, coasts, forests, and families across the country. EPA must not walk away from the legal foundation that helps control it.

Sign now to urge EPA to restore the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and protect communities from climate pollution rollbacks.

The Petition

To the Administrator of th U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,

I urge the Environmental Protection Agency to restore the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and reinstate federal vehicle greenhouse gas standards.

EPA’s mission is to protect public health and the environment. Rescinding the endangerment finding moves the agency in the opposite direction. That finding recognized that greenhouse gas pollution threatens public health and welfare. It formed the foundation for federal action to limit climate pollution from vehicles and other sources.

Repealing that foundation weakens the country’s ability to confront climate pollution at the moment communities need stronger protection. Extreme heat, wildfire smoke, flooding, storms, sea-level rise, and air quality threats are not distant risks. They are already affecting children, older adults, people with asthma, outdoor workers, coastal communities, farmers, Tribal communities, low-income neighborhoods, and wildlife habitat.

EPA has stated that its rescission removes the statutory basis for greenhouse gas standards for new motor vehicles and engines. That means the decision is not symbolic. It strips away real safeguards and creates uncertainty for states, automakers, public health advocates, and families who need pollution reductions.

Public health organizations, environmental groups, and young Americans have challenged the repeal in court. Their concern is justified. EPA should not ignore established science, legal precedent, and the lived reality of climate harm.

Please reverse the rescission, restore the endangerment finding, reinstate vehicle greenhouse gas standards, and reaffirm EPA’s duty to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act. EPA should also conduct transparent, science-based rulemaking that fully accounts for public health, environmental justice, wildlife, and long-term climate risks.

The agency charged with protecting the public should not abandon one of the central tools for addressing climate pollution. Please return EPA to its public health mission.

Sincerely,

DEV MODE ACTIVE. BRAND: gg