By: Samantha Johnstone, Intern, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: August 21, 2025
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Samantha Johnstone and I am an intern for Moms Clean Air Force and the Environmental Defense Fund. I strongly oppose EPA’s proposal to rescind the Endangerment Finding and climate pollution limits for tailpipes.
My family has lived in the SF Bay Area for over four generations. In fact, just over a month ago, my fifth cousin was born. As I held her in my arms, I thought about the world of increasing weather extremes she will be raised in.
One where she might not be able to play on the swings after school because the afternoon sun is too hot or one where little league games are constantly rescheduled because of wildfire smoke.
Despite growing up in the same place, we will have vastly different childhoods because climate change is already taking away her ability to be a kid. She’s not even 45 days old, yet she’s already experienced the Bay Area’s coldest summer on record, which many scientists have linked to climate change and accelerated warming in the Arctic.
Climate change is here, and it’s costing us money and lives. There is an overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gases are driving global warming, which is leading to irremediable economic and health damages. In 2024 alone we lost over $182 billion dollars to weather and climate disasters and saw thousands of deaths.
Choosing to blatantly ignore this science will cost Americans lives – and it will be their blood on your hands.
The EPA claims to protect the “human health and the environment,” which is exactly why the Endangerment Finding has been, and should continue to be, a backbone of your work. Courts have continually rejected challenges to the Endangerment Finding for a reason. For over 16 years, science and the law have agreed that this finding is necessary to regulate climate pollutants from a variety of sources.
I am firmly committed to protecting our country’s health, and I am gravely disappointed that my patriotism is not reflected within the EPA by this proposal. This is why I am here today, asking you to do your job and keep the Endangerment Finding and vital limits on climate pollution from tailpipes. Rescinding these protections will take away the critical safeguards for public health and the environment, worsening America for all. Thank you for your time.