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Washington, DC—Moms Clean Air Force will testify before EPA today to tell the agency not to end the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. For 15 years, the program has provided vital information to protect people from global warming. Ending this program would be especially devastating to children’s health since growing bodies are uniquely vulnerable to climate impacts like extreme heat, intense wildfires, and dangerous polluted air.
“This is yet another act by the Trump administration that will harm our children,” says Dominique Browning, Moms Clean Air Force’s director & co-founder. “It is coming right after EPA’s attempt to cancel its responsibility to curb climate pollution. Under Zeldin’s direction, EPA has veered far from its mission to ‘protect human health and the environment’ despite what he promised Senators during his confirmation hearing. This is an outrage. Eliminating the program won’t make the climate crisis somehow miraculously go away.”
Moms Clean Air Force organizers from AZ, GA, and PA are among those testifying today.
Arizona Field Organizer Pita Juarez will tell EPA:
“We see the impacts of climate change all around us. Every year, our wildfires grow more destructive, wiping out the little green space we have left where people can breathe fresh air. Extreme heat, something every Arizonan knows too well, is getting worse and also taking lives. This summer, we lost a neighbor who already faced health issues and didn’t have air conditioning in her home. That tragedy was preventable, yet it happened here in our community. That’s why programs like the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) are so important. The GHGRP monitors climate pollution from the nation’s largest sources, giving us vital public information about what’s fueling climate change and supercharging extreme weather. This data empowers the public, policymakers, and businesses to take action and to hold polluters accountable.”
Georgia Field Organizer Kiya Stanford will tell EPA:
“The health impacts of climate change are proven to disproportionately harm vulnerable populations like children, the elderly, lower-income populations and communities of color. Not collecting the data won’t make the effects associated with them go away but will exacerbate their effects on these communities. As a black woman, with aging parents, and a desire to grow a family, my intersectionality will undoubtedly cause me to feel the effects of this repeal in my lifetime. Climate scientists have been clear that we need to prioritize cutting climate pollution NOW for the safety of future generations, and the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is critical to making that happen. Removing it now would be like removing the smoke detector from a burning building because you are tired of the noise. The fire won’t stop just because the alarm is gone.”
Pennsylvania Field Organizer Vanessa Lynch will tell EPA:
“When my kids were infants, one of their favorite games was peek-a-boo. At that young age, when you cover your eyes, the entire world disappears from existence because your mind does not understand object permanence – the idea that things can exist even when you don’t see them. We cover our eyes to the amount of greenhouse gas that exists at our own peril because, as all adults know, many things exist even though we can’t see them.”