Advocates released a letter calling for EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to resign or be removed.
Contact: Gabrielle Levy, [email protected], (562) 673-6974
WASHINGTON–It’s Game Over Zeldin: More than 160 climate, environmental justice, and public health organizations today called for Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin’s resignation or removal, citing his systematic dismantling of the agency’s core mission to protect public health and the environment.
Advocates, led by the Climate Action Campaign and Moms Clean Air Force, released a letter signed by 163 organizations demanding Zeldin leave or be fired after more than a year in which he put polluters – not the best interests of the American public – first.
“By corrupting EPA’s mission, Administrator Zeldin has abandoned his sworn duty and betrayed the trust Congress and the American people placed in him,” the letter says. “We have seen enough. Administrator Zeldin must go.”
Zeldin and President Trump have abandoned the EPA’s mission to “protect human health and the environment” and instead treat people as expendable. Under Zeldin’s leadership, polluters have been given free rein to poison our air and water, corporate profits have been placed above human health, and the value of a human life has been set, literally, at zero.
“The wreckage of Lee Zeldin’s EPA will be measured in lives lost, jobs destroyed, the costs of illnesses that could have been prevented, and communities devastated. We will be paying the price for decades to come,” said Margie Alt, Director of the Climate Action Campaign. “Zeldin ignored science as well as the legal and moral precedent. Instead, he looked at the numbers and made a choice: He decided that corporate bottom lines matter more than our lives. He decided you and your family are expendable. After a year on the job, it is clear that Zeldin is either unable or unwilling to uphold his oath of office or the EPA’s fundamental mission. So let us be clear: Our lives are not expendable. Our health is not expendable. Our climate is not expendable. Lee Zeldin must go.”
“Administrator Zeldin has completely and utterly betrayed EPA’s mission,” said Dominique Browning, Moms Clean Air Force director and co-founder. “In just the past few months, he has supported the Trump administration in using taxpayer money to prop up the coal industry; he has made it easier for polluters to spew mercury—a potent neurotoxin that damages the developing brains of babies—into our air and waterways; and he has rolled back the Endangerment Finding in an attempt to sabotage EPA’s ability to cut climate pollution. Zeldin’s tenure at EPA has been a master class in moral corruption, and it’s quite literally making us sick. The American people and their children deserve better. Zeldin must go.”
The letter and the full list of signatories can be viewed at GameOverZeldin.com.
About the Climate Action Campaign
Climate Action Campaign (CAC) is a vibrant coalition driving ambitious, durable, equitable federal action to tackle the climate crisis. By cutting carbon pollution and accelerating the transition to clean energy, we will improve public health and create a more resilient economy and a more sustainable future for all.