Contact: Tom Schuster, Director, Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter, tom.schuster@sierraclub.org
Washington, DC – In a brazen assault on the health and welfare of the American public, the Trump administration announced its rule revoking the Environmental Protection Agency’s longstanding greenhouse gas endangerment finding under the federal Clean Air Act. With the stroke of a pen at a White House, Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin have formalized climate denialism as official government policy and moved to eliminate EPA’s ability to directly fight the climate crisis.
The 2009 finding—based on the overwhelming scientific evidence that carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases endanger our health, our economy, and our future by driving global climate change—has been upheld unanimously in federal court. The finding gives EPA the formal statutory authority and obligation to regulate emissions of these heat-trapping gases from motor vehicles—the largest source of climate pollution in the United States—and laid the ground for control of greenhouse gas emissions from other major sources like power plants. It was adopted following a rigorous rulemaking process considering thousands of public comments and a massive record of scientific research, which has grown far more voluminous in the intervening years.
Lee Zeldin and Donald Trump plan to toss out the endangerment finding on blatantly specious legal grounds, attempting to wish away the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 holding in Massachusetts v. EPA that the Clean Air Act does cover greenhouse gas pollution. While this rule specifically concerns greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, EPA has made clear that it will do the same for other major sources of climate pollution like power plants.
Sierra Club has been involved in the legal fight for federal climate standards longer than any other organization. In December 2002, the Club filed the first-ever climate case under the Clean Air Act in federal court, seeking to force EPA to limit greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles under the statute. That lawsuit ultimately led to the Court’s holding in Massachusetts and the agency’s issuance of the endangerment finding in 2009. Now, two-and-a-half decades later, Trump and Zeldin are trying to destroy these hard-fought victories and turn back the clock to the 19th century.
Eliminating federal greenhouse standards will not only imperil the public, but could also open the floodgates to litigation directly against automobile manufacturers, fossil fuel companies, and other major sources of greenhouse gases who were otherwise shielded from such lawsuits under a 2011 Supreme Court ruling.
In the wake of this announcement, the Sierra Club and partners are exploring all legal options in response, including litigation.
In response, Tom Schuster, Director of the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter, issued the following statement:
"The Trump administration’s assertion that climate disrupting pollution does not endanger public health is a sick joke. Pennsylvanians can see and feel the effects for themselves. We feel the summer heat waves make it unsafe to work or play outside and drive up smog pollution that puts people in hospitals. We brace for the torrential thunderstorms that knock out our power, flood our basements and neighborhoods, and cause massive polluted runoff into our water supplies. We fear the explosion of tick-borne illness and suffer the dangerous arctic chills that are the result of a weakened jet stream. The list goes on, but none of this matters to a president bent on rewarding his fossil fuel billionaire friends.
This rollback is one more action that will make it harder for the Environmental Protection Agency to actually protect us, but we will not stop fighting at every level to ensure that all Pennsylvanians have a safe and healthy environment in which to pursue their happiness."
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.