Contact: CleanAir@skdknick.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today climate action supporters, including parents, youth advocates, public health experts, and others representing the broad coalition in support of the Clean Air Act gathered on the steps of the Supreme Court to speak out against coal companies and far-right politicians’ attempt to roll back decades of progress in fighting the climate crisis. Showcasing wide-ranging support for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards to reduce carbon pollution, the event coincided with oral arguments before the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA.
If the majority of Justices side with the petitioners in West Virginia v. EPA and gut the Clean Air Act, the Supreme Court will be responsible for returning the United States to a pre-1970s era legal framework, when Americans choked in soot, smog, and toxic pollution. Monday’s event featured remarks from climate advocates, spotlighting the overwhelming public support for ensuring the EPA has the authority necessary to address the climate crisis through limits on carbon pollution.
“The arguments being made by coal companies in the Supreme Court today are a moral travesty,” said Rev. Susan Hendershot, President of Interfaith Power & Light. “They are about power and greed: the power of coal executives to direct public policy in their own interest, at the expense of the health and safety of our families and communities; and the greed of those same companies and their leaders to line their pockets on the backs of children suffering from asthma and the desecration of our air and waterways.”
“It is highly unusual for the Supreme Court to take up a case that revolves around a hypothetical future regulation,” said Professor Dan Kammen, James and Katherine Lau Distinguished Chair in Sustainability at the University of California Berkeley Energy and Climate Initiative. “Even more than that, it is anti-innovation and anti-business in that this suit would restrict our ability to create new, job-producing, community-protecting laws. At minimum, the Supreme Court should wait for specific proposals.”
“We know that our young patients depend on us to protect them and preserve a healthy world for their future,” said Dr. Samantha Ahdoot, Chair and Founder of Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action. “We cannot do that if we are not protecting them from carbon pollution and climate change. The Clean Air Act has been protecting American children for over 50 years. Today, they urgently need protection from climate pollution. I urge the Supreme Court to protect our children by protecting the Clean Air Act.”
“In West Virginia, we want clean air and clean water. We want protections for the health and safety of our communities. We want climate action,” said Maura Ross, Chair of West Virginians for Sustainable Development and a member of the Eastern Panhandle Green Coalition. “We want a just transition to clean energy that supports family-sustaining, good-paying jobs for the people and the communities that once relied on coal. And we want our elected officials to listen to the people, not the coal executives or overseas businessmen. Today, at the Supreme Court, our progress in the fight against climate change is on the line. The Court can either choose to protect the Clean Air Act and our future or to protect the profits of the coal industry and the ambitions of far-right politicians.”
Last month, environmental respondents outlined their perspectives on West Virginia v. EPA in their brief filed with the Supreme Court. In addition to public support for the Clean Air Act, the Department of Justice and EPA, a coalition of two dozen states and cities, leading businesses, the American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics, and a group of power companies that serve millions of customers in states across the country also filed briefs with the Supreme Court supporting EPA’s authority to regulate carbon pollution from power plants. A full summary of the amici filings can be found here.
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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.