Date: January 22, 2026
To:
The Honorable Shelley Moore Capito
Chair
Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works
410 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Sheldon Whitehouse
Ranking Member
Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works
410 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Brett Guthrie
Chair
House Committee on Energy & Commerce
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Frank Pallone
Ranking Member
House Committee on Energy & Commerce
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chair Capito, Chair Guthrie, Ranking Member Whitehouse, and Ranking Member Pallone:
We, the undersigned 206 organizations, call on Congress to hold the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accountable for its responsibility to Congress and the American public, including by calling EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to testify before Congress. EPA is not following its core mission: to protect human health and the environment. On behalf of our millions of members nationwide, we ask the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to exercise your oversight authority and conduct hearings regarding EPA’s work and decision-making under Administrator Zeldin’s leadership.
Our organizations are concerned that EPA is pursuing an aggressive deregulatory agenda that has resulted in a massive increase in health-damaging air pollution, toxic chemicals, and climate-heating greenhouse gases. These actions put our children’s lives in danger and will harm the health of people in the U.S. for generations.
More harmful air and climate pollution and dangerous toxic chemicals
EPA’s actions will cause more emissions of neurotoxic mercury and deadly fine particles from coal-fired power plants.1 Methylmercury is a potent neurotoxin that damages the developing fetal brain, and no amount is safe.2 Particulate matter passes from the lungs into the bloodstream, heart, and brain.3
EPA’s actions will make it easier for industry to put thousands of toxic chemicals— like PFAS forever chemicals and phthalates, which have been linked to cancers and hormone disruption—into the products we buy, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink.4 EPA recently doubled the amount of formaldehyde, a known human carcinogen, that our government considers acceptable for children and families to breathe.5
EPA has paved the way for industrial polluters to receive unwarranted presidential exemptions from hazardous air pollutant safeguards, giving the nation’s largest petrochemical facilities, steel plants, and others “free passes” to pollute and damage our health.6
The current EPA has focused an attack on clean air in national parks and wilderness areas across the country. EPA is working to strip these places of their protections through the systematic deregulation of the Regional Haze Rule, a rule established decades ago and born from the bipartisan Clean Air Act.7 The agency has already rubber-stamped dozens of state plans that will do nothing to clear the haze that fouls the national parks and other pristine areas of the country.
EPA is working to dismantle the Endangerment Finding, the agency’s long-standing, science-based finding that climate pollution endangers public health and well-being.8 It is repealing climate pollution standards for vehicles9 and power plants.10 EPA has already delayed crucial standards to limit methane pollution from oil and gas operations.11 EPA is even eliminating climate pollution monitoring and reporting commanded by Congress.12 The current EPA has removed references to human causes of climate change, despite overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are the primary driver of the climate crisis.13
Under current leadership, EPA is weakening standards that protect people from smog-forming and toxic tailpipe pollution from trucks, buses, and cars.14 The transportation sector is the largest source of climate pollution in the U.S. and a significant source of other health-harming pollutants.15 EPA has proposed to eliminate all limits from the past fifteen years on greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle tailpipes. EPA is also weakening pollution limits on power plants in order to feed the excessive power appetite of data centers.16
The current EPA’s actions will cause more asthma attacks, more lung damage in children, more pregnancy complications and premature births, more dementia, more cancer, more heart attacks and strokes, more premature deaths, and more mental health harms.17
Current EPA actions will increase Americans’ affordability crisis.18 Medical bills will grow. Health insurance will become even more expensive. So, too, will the costs of electricity, food, water, and home insurance. One recent study by the University of Maryland projects that the economic costs of rolling back health protections, and clean air and clean energy programs, will be in the billions annually, with a $1.1 trillion loss in the country’s GDP by 2035.19
Betrayal of EPA’s mission—and the trust of Congress and the American people
We understand that priorities shift when administrations change, but the current EPA’s actions disregard both congressional mandates and the agency’s mission. They represent the most radical departure in EPA history. Christine Todd Whitman, who led EPA under President George W. Bush, warned that “this administration is endangering all of our lives—ours, our children, our grandchildren.”20 Dr. Howard Frumkin, Bush’s Director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said “Americans will die needlessly” because of budget cuts and EPA’s rollbacks.21
EPA’s only job is to protect human health and the environment. Congress has tasked EPA with clear mandates to achieve this goal through laws like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. We urge you to exercise your oversight authority to ensure that EPA fulfills its core mission, including by calling for EPA Administrator Zeldin to testify before Congress.
Sincerely,
Moms Clean Air Force
350 Bay Area Action
350 Colorado
350 Conejo / San Fernando Valley
350Hawaii
350NH Action
350 Wisconsin
Advocates for Snake Preservation
Air Alliance Houston
Alaska Community Action on Toxics
Alliance of Maine Health Professionals for Climate Action
Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments
Allianza Nacional de Campesinas
American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Medical Association
American Psychiatric Association
Animals Are Sentient Beings, Inc.
Arizona Interfaith Power & Light
Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America
Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America – Michigan Chapter
Bayou City Waterkeeper
Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community
Be The Change - Colorado
Between the Waters
Beyond Plastics
Black Appalachian Coalition
Black Parents United Foundation
Blacks for Political and Social Action of Dane County, Inc.
Breach Collective
Breathe Project
Brighton Honey
Broomfield Health and Safety First
Carolina Advocates for Climate, Health, and Equity
Center for a Sustainable Coast
Center for Coalfield Justice
Cherokee Concerned Citizens
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Chispa Arizona
CHR, Inc.
Citizen Action of Wisconsin
Citizens Against Widening the Industrial Canal
Citizens Caring for the Future
Citizens for a Healthy and Safe Environment
Clean Air Action
Clean Air Council
Clean Energy NH
Clean Wisconsin
Clean4ChangeKY
Climate Action Campaign
Climate Action Pennsylvania
Climate Code Blue
Climate Health Civic Health
Climate Justice Alliance
Climate Psychiatry Alliance
Climate Psychology Alliance - North America
Climate Reality Project - NJ
Clinicians for Climate Action New Jersey
CO Coalition for a Livable Climate
Colorado Rising
ColoradoWild
Commission Shift
Common Ground Rising
Communitopia
Concerned Citizens of Cook County (Georgia)
Concerned Health Professionals of Pennsylvania
Conservation Colorado
Creation Care Committee of the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church
Cultivando
Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action
Dogwood Alliance
Don’t Waste Arizona
Earth Ethics, Inc.
Earthjustice Action
Earthworks
Ecology Center
EcoMadres
Ecotrust
EDF Action
Elders Climate Action
Endangered Species Coalition
Environmental Health Project
Environmental Law & Policy Center
Environmental Protection Network
Epworth United Methodist Church
Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services
Faith in Place
Forward Together East Point
Forward Together Wisconsin
Freshwater Accountability Project
Friends of the Earth
GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives)
Georgia Conservation Voters
Georgia Interfaith Power and Light
Georgia WAND
Girl Plus Environment
Grand Valley Citizens Alliance
Green House Connection Center
GreenLatinos
GreenRoots, Inc.
Green The Church
Group Against Smog & Pollution (GASP)
HEAL Utah
Healthy Air & Water Colorado
Healthy Climate New Mexico
Healthy Climate Wisconsin
Healthy Gulf
Healthy Ocean Coalition
Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate
Heritage Works, Inc.
Hip Hop Caucus
Idaho Clinicians for Climate and Health
A House Unbuilt
JMFJ Academy, Inc.
JustAir
Just Transition Northwest Indiana
Just Zero
Larimer Alliance for Health, Safety, and the Environment
Latino Outdoors
The Last Plastic Straw
League of Conservation Voters
Loudoun Climate Project
Maine Unitarian Universalist State Advocacy Network
Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health
Micah Six Eight Mission
Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action
Michigan Environmental Council
Mi Familia en Accion
Mi Familia Vota
Milwaukee Riverkeeper
MKE FreshAir Collective
Montana Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate
Mothers and Others for Clean Air
Mothers Out Front
Mountain Mamas
Mountain Watershed Association
Nassau Hiking & Outdoor Club
National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA)
Natural Resources Defense Council
Nevada Conservation League
New Mexico Environmental Law Center
NH Healthy Climate
New York Clinicians for Climate Action
North American Climate, Conservation, and Environment
Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition
Nuclear Energy Information Service
Occupy Bergen County
Ocean Conservation Outreach
Ohio Valley Environmental Advocates
One Mississippi
Owámniyomni Okhódayapi
Partnership for Policy Integrity
People Over Petro Coalition
Physicians for a National Health Program (PHNP)
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado
Physicians for Social Responsibility Maine
Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania
Physicians for Social Responsibility San Francisco Bay
Physicians for Social Responsibility Texas
Plastic Pollution Coalition
Plug In America
Poder Latinx
Progressive Democrats of America - New Jersey chapter
Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada
Protect PT
Rachel Carson Council
Resource Renewal Institute
Respiratory Heath Association
Responsible Alpha
Riverwise
Save Ohio Parks
Save The Aurora Reservoir
Save West Mamm Creek
Science for Georgia
Sierra Club
SOBE Concerned Citizens
Solar United Neighbors
Southern Environmental Law Center
Southport Trinity UMC and Green Sustainable Church
Southwest Energy Efficiency Project
Storytelling with Saris
Tewa Women United
Third Act Wisconsin
Three Rivers Waterkeeper
Together for Brothers
Turtle Island Restoration Network
Union of Concerned Scientists
Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community
Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment
Vermont Climate and Health Alliance
VT Climate and Health
Walnut Way Conservation Corp
Waterkeeper Alliance
WE Act for Environmental Justice
West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs
Western Colorado Alliance
Western Clean Energy Campaign
Western Leaders Network
West Virginia Citizen Action Group
West Virginia Environmental Council
West Virginia Highlands Conservancy
West Virginia Rivers Coalition
Wisconsin Conservation Voters
Wisdom Lessons
Womxn From The Mountain
Notes
- https://www.edf.org/maps/epa-pollution-pass/
- https://www.momscleanairforce.org/resources/mercury-101/
- https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/what-makes-air-unhealthy/particle-pollution
- https://earthjustice.org/press/2025/trumps-epa-plan-would-downplay-the-dangers-of-toxic-chemicals-in-everyday-products
- https://www.propublica.org/article/epa-formaldehyde-risk-assessment
- https://www.edf.org/maps/epa-pollution-pass/
- https://www.eenews.net/articles/epa-delays-next-round-of-air-cleanup-plans-for-national-parks/
- https://www.momscleanairforce.org/what-to-know-about-the-endangerment-finding/
- https://www.edf.org/media/trump-epa-takes-final-steps-rule-expected-overturn-endangerment-finding-clean-vehicle
- https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/07161533/Clean-Air-Task-Force-and-Partner-Organizations-Comments-to-EPA-on-Proposed-Repeal-of-the-Carbon-Pollution-Standards-for-Existing-Coal-fired-and-New-Gas-fired-Power-Plants-Alternative-Proposal.pdf
- https://www.nrdc.org/press-releases/groups-file-lawsuit-challenging-trump-epa-final-rule-delays-methane-pollution
- https://www.edf.org/media/trump-epa-proposal-would-eliminate-greenhouse-gas-reporting-program
- https://e360.yale.edu/digest/epa-website-climate-change
- https://library.edf.org/AssetLink/0a0aw5i51s3800tn3bv1e3q0634wnvxr.pdf
- https://www.nrdc.org/issues/transportation
- https://www.ucs.org/about/news/epas-new-gas-turbine-standards-open-polluter-loopholes-ignore-public-health-harms
- https://www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/epafacts/facts-rollbacks-of-pollution-rules-will-cost-over-200k-lives/
- https://www.nrdc.org/stories/how-epa-rollbacks-will-cost-us-dollars-and-lives#health
- https://spp.umd.edu/research-impact/publications/us-clean-energy-policy-rollbacks-economic-and-public-health-impacts
- https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2025/03/14/trump-environmental-rollbacks-would-boost-pollution-and-endanger-lives-former-epa-heads-say/
- https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2025/06/11/around-the-nation