SEEC Slams Trump EPA ‘All-You-Can-Pollute’ Assault on Your Health
Washington, D.C. – The leaders of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC), including Co-Chairs Reps. Doris Matsui, Mike Quigley, and Paul Tonko and Vice Chairs Reps. Don Beyer, Suzanne Bonamici, Sean Casten, Mike Levin, and Chellie Pingree, released the following statement in response to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin’s final decision to repeal the landmark Endangerment Finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare, alongside the determination to gut vehicle tailpipe pollution protections. Last year, SEEC submitted a 154-Member public comment letter condemning EPA’s proposal to rescind the Endangerment Finding.
“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s job could not be more clear: protect the health of our families and the environment we live in. Yet, after months of the American people and businesses alike warning EPA of the dangers of rolling back our nation’s life-saving pollution standards, Administrator Lee Zeldin has unleashed an ‘all-you-can-pollute’ assault on the American people.
“At the top of the list is the reckless decision to repeal the Endangerment Finding, which is part of the Trump EPA’s outrageous attempt to assert fossil fuel propaganda as fact that climate change isn’t affecting Americans’ health and safety. This is a gut punch to every American who has already experienced the costs of worsening natural disasters, the lack of attainable and climate-resilient homes in their zip code, the numerous health impacts of worsening heatwaves and wildfires, the inability to find affordable home insurance, high costs at the grocery store, and more. The evidence is all around us, and yet Trump’s EPA continues its single-minded mission to deliver on Trump’s promises to big polluters.
“As if this wasn’t enough, EPA today also gutted pollution standards for vehicles. Apparently, this EPA does not care about the tens of thousands of lives that were expected to be saved by these standards. This is in keeping with their decision last month to no longer consider the value of saving lives when setting air pollution rules for soot and ozone. Trump’s EPA has deliberately turned its back on the people whose lives would be saved by keeping harmful air pollution out of the air we breathe.
“There will be a time when this Administration’s yes-men will need to explain to our children why they rolled back every possible pollution protection just to make their friends richer while the American people suffered.”