This year, EPA has proposed an unprecedented number of strong air and climate pollution standards. We need these standards finalized and implemented ASAP. Our health—and our climate—can’t wait!
SPEAK OUT: Tell President Biden and EPA Administrator Regan to set the strongest possible pollution standards no later than May 2024.
Ozone pollution is unhealthy and dangerous. Yet EPA has announced that it will delay strengthening the current ozone standards, putting the health of millions at risk for years to come. This delay is unacceptable. Families and communities living with ozone pollution deserve stronger ozone standards now.
SPEAK OUT: Tell EPA not to delay on setting strong ozone standards.
Vinyl chloride—a toxic petrochemical used to make PVC plastic—spilled and burned in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023, when a train carrying the chemical derailed. The fiery plume released toxic chemicals that can cause liver cancer as well as leukemia, lymphoma, brain cancer, and lung cancer into the air.
SPEAK OUT: Tell EPA to ban vinyl chloride to ensure an event like the Ohio chemical disaster doesn’t happen again.
Across the country, we are experiencing unprecedented weather extremes. These extremes are putting a significant burden on mental health and human services in our communities. The Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act will invest in expanding community-based mental health and resilience programs in places hit by extreme weather events and climate disasters.
SPEAK OUT: Tell Congress to support essential funding for communities hit hard by climate disaster
Petrochemical pollution is an ongoing threat. Families across the US are exposed to dangerous petrochemicals—a category of toxic chemicals used to make plastics, among other things—in the air they breathe and the water they drink. Our government needs to do more to protect us from this harmful pollution.
SPEAK OUT: Tell President Joe Biden and EPA Administrator Michael Regan to crack down on the plastics industry and petrochemical pollution.
Climate change is increasingly affecting our mental health, and our children are suffering the most. Children and young people deserve access to high-quality, age-appropriate education about climate change to thrive in the world they’re growing up in—and help create the climate solutions we need.
Congress is considering two resolutions that will help ensure young people have access to the educational and mental health resources they need to thrive in a changing climate.
SPEAK OUT: Tell Congress to support and cosponsor these important resolutions.
Plastic is not a plant-based renewable fuel. And yet, EPA has quietly inserted waste plastic into its renewable fuel standard program, which was designed to fast-track the production of renewable fuels from plants, algae, and other biological sources.
Plastic is not a renewable resource. Nearly all plastic is made from fossil fuels, and burning plastic produces dioxins, heavy metals, and other hazardous air pollutants as well as climate pollution.
SPEAK OUT: Tell EPA to stop including waste plastic as a fuel source in this biofuels program.
Over the last few years, plastics industry lobbyists have been promoting a decades-old incineration method as a new way to solve the plastic pollution crisis. They are calling the process “advanced recycling,” even though nothing gets recycled. Instead, the trash that enters a so-called “advanced recycling” facility is burned, creating harmful air pollution and toxic ash.
SPEAK OUT: Tell EPA to protect our communities from pollution from these plastics incineration facilities.
Oil and gas giants - some of the world’s most profitable companies - are granted hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies each year—even though these are old industries that have not needed the financial boost for many decades. Meanwhile, they pay absolutely no price for the damage they are doing to our health, and in climate chaos.
Our investments must go to the deployment of clean renewable energy.
It is more important than ever for states and cities to take action on climate change. States—and their governors—can be powerful leaders in reducing climate pollution and spurring a clean energy economy.
