If you’ve never heard of the Endangerment Finding, you’re not alone—before working in environmental policy, I hadn’t either. But it’s a foundational part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to protect us from the health effects of climate change, and thanks to the new Trump administration, it’s now directly under threat.
Revoking the Endangerment Finding would put so much at risk: our families’ physical and mental health, humans’ ability to thrive on this planet, the stability of our societies. Here’s what you need to know about this vital protection.
What is the Endangerment Finding?
The Endangerment Finding was issued by EPA in 2009 in response to a Supreme Court decision determining that greenhouse gases—the climate pollution emitted when fossil fuels are burned for energy—should be considered a form of pollution governed by the Clean Air Act, our nation’s bedrock clean air legislation. Based on extensive scientific evidence, EPA found that climate pollution does indeed endanger the public health and welfare of current and future generations, and issued the Endangerment Finding in acknowledgment of its clear responsibility to protect people in the U.S. from the health impacts of climate change.
Tell Administrator Zeldin: Cutting Climate Pollution Is One of EPA’s Most Important Jobs
How is the Endangerment Finding being threatened?
On January 20, the Trump administration issued dozens of executive orders attacking the protections meant to keep our families and communities safe from unhealthy air and climate pollution. One of these executive orders directs new EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to review the “legality and continuing applicability” of the Endangerment Finding and provide recommendations by February 19 to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Though there is overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gases are driving global warming and directly threatening human health, the acting EPA Administrator fired the agency’s own independent science advisory board shortly after this executive order was issued—a clear warning that independent scientific consensus won’t be what’s driving EPA’s recommendations on the Endangerment Finding.
The same executive order also opens the door to a flood of attacks on multiple rulemakings protecting us from fossil fuel pollution by directing EPA to review any rules that might pose an “undue burden” on “domestic energy resources”—in other words, any rulemakings that might inconvenience the fossil fuel industry. These directives are an alarming indication that Trump’s EPA intends to prioritize industry profits over our health and our children’s futures.
What’s at stake if the Endangerment Finding is undermined or revoked?
Undermining or revoking the Endangerment Finding threatens EPA’s ability to protect us from climate pollution at all, and the health of our families is what’s at stake.
With every new supercharged wildfire, hurricane, and heat wave, families are feeling the increasing danger of extreme weather with terrifying intimacy. Undermining the Endangerment Finding would mean more parents navigating the trauma of wildfires and wondering if smoky air is safe for children to breathe. It would mean more days that are too hot for young people to play outside, more families displaced by flooding, and more parents anxiously checking children’s little limbs for ticks as global warming increases the prevalence of Lyme disease and other vector-borne illnesses. It would mean more school days disrupted by extreme weather; more scrambling to find childcare. It would mean more families saddled with the overwhelming financial burdens that come with endless weather disasters.
And it would mean the Trump administration is willing to fatten the pockets of fossil fuel industry billionaires while our children, families, and communities pay the price.
What can we do about it?
If EPA Administrator Zeldin does recommend undermining or revoking the Endangerment Finding, this would be a serious breach of integrity from an agency whose stated mission is to “protect human health and the environment” and a betrayal of public trust.
There’s a lot at stake right now, but we are not powerless: Moms Clean Air Force will push back against this administration’s efforts to put corporate profits over our children’s health every step of the way. Join us in calling on Administrator Zeldin to preserve the integrity of the Endangerment Finding and the critical progress we’ve made in protecting communities from fossil fuel pollution.
Tell Administrator Zeldin: Cutting Climate Pollution Is One of EPA’s Most Important Jobs