Greenhouse gas pollution from combusting fossil fuels is putting floods, fires, and hurricanes on steroids. These climate emergencies are triggering chemical disasters—the factory explosions and fires, melting pipelines, and toxic releases that add a terrifying sequel to extreme weather.
This is one more reason to join Moms in opposing the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back the Endangerment Finding, the legal foundation on which EPA is able to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Tell Administrator Zeldin: Cutting Climate Pollution Is Essential for Our Families’ Health
Plastics and petrochemical facilities emit significant climate pollution, and when extreme weather supercharged by fossil fuels hits these facilities, the resulting chemical disasters can lead to colossal releases of greenhouse gases and dangerous toxic chemicals. It is a self-reinforcing loop of destruction that can last for years or decades and end in cancer and other serious illnesses.
We need the Endangerment Finding and its climate protections to disrupt this cycle.
Toxic chemical releases happen before, during, and after climate-fueled severe weather events, from hurricanes to heat to wildfires.
- In 2017, chemical companies smothered Texas communities with nearly 2,000 extra tons of benzene, dioxins, and other hazardous pollutants—far beyond toxic pollution levels during normal operations—emptying their equipment of flammable gases ahead of Hurricane Harvey.
- In 2020, a pipeline carrying carbon dioxide used in oil drilling fractured violently in heavy rains and floods in Satartia, Mississippi, spewing carbon dioxide for hours. The carbon dioxide displaced oxygen in the air, so car engines stopped running and people could not escape.
- During the January 2025 Los Angeles, California, wildfires—the culmination of intense heat and 8 months of drought and fanned by powerful Santa Ana winds—hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to extremely toxic chemicals, such as asbestos, PFAS, and dioxins, as plastic-laden urban infrastructure burned.
The Trump administration’s proposal to rescind the Endangerment Finding is a gift to fossil fuel and petrochemical corporations, but for the rest of us, it is a reckless attack that will harm our children and jeopardize their futures.
Join Moms in calling on EPA to do its job of protecting human health and the environment.
Read more about the link between the Endangerment Finding and petrochemical pollution in our Q&A.
Tell Administrator Zeldin: Cutting Climate Pollution Is Essential for Our Families’ Health