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As Zeldin Embraces Climate Crisis Deniers, 290+ Health Experts Demand His Removal
"We cannot tolerate an EPA administrator who treats our families as expendable."
Apr 09, 2026
Hundreds of health experts are demanding the removal of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin over his gutting of key regulations that they say will endanger Americans' livelihoods.
A letter released Thursday by Climate Action Campaign outlines Zeldin's threats to public health and explains why he should not be serving as the top US environmental regulator.
"Administrator Zeldin is pursuing a deregulatory agenda that will result in a massive increase in health-damaging air pollution, toxic chemicals, and climate-heating greenhouse gases," says the letter, which is signed by nearly 300 medical experts, including physicians, nurses, and public health researchers.
"And just last month, the administration laid bare its decision to no longer count the economic value of health benefits when setting Clean Air Act rules," the letter adds, "refusing to acknowledge the value of lives saved, hospital visits avoided, and lost work and school days prevented."
The letter also points to the EPA's February decision to revoke the so-called "endangerment finding," which gave the agency authority to regulate greenhouse gases as threats to public health.
Repealing this finding, the letter contends, "will increase the frequency and severity of climate disasters."
According to a Wednesday report from The Associated Press, Zeldin celebrated the EPA's revocation of the finding while delivering a keynote address at the Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank that has long pushed climate denialism.
"Today is a moment to celebrate," Zeldin said at the event. "It is a day to celebrate vindication."
Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, said her group decided to organize the letter among medical experts because "Lee Zeldin is too dangerous to ignore."
"When health experts—the people who see the effects of pollution on their patients every single day—say enough is enough, the rest of us need to pay attention," said Alt. "Zeldin is not just failing Americans. He is actively endangering us. We cannot tolerate an EPA administrator who treats our families as expendable."
This is the second "Game Over Zeldin" letter, following another from over 160 advocacy groups, including Climate Action Campaign and Moms Clean Air Force, last month.
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'Game Over Zeldin': 160+ Climate and Health Groups Say EPA Chief Must Go
"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."
Mar 24, 2026
A month after President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced what they celebrated as the "single largest deregulatory action in US history," a coalition of over 160 civil rights, environmental, faith, health, and labor groups came together Tuesday to call for the EPA chief's ouster.
Zeldin was confirmed by Senate Republicans and a trio of Democrats just over a week after Trump returned to power in January 2025. The "Game Over Zeldin" coalition, led by the Climate Action Campaign (CAC) and Moms Clean Air Force, argued in an open letter that no other EPA administrator "in history—Democratic or Republican—has so brazenly betrayed the agency's core mission" to "protect human health and the environment."
"Zeldin has dismantled protections that keep our kids, families, and climate safe, and our air and water clean," the letter notes. "He slashed vital funding, gutted agency staff, and has rigged the system to put corporate polluters first, at the expense of our health. Zeldin's EPA has rejected science and health data—and is refusing to count the value of human lives and health—in order to erode commonsense public health safeguards. He has decimated environmental justice programs and hard-fought progress—entirely eliminating the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights."
Dominique Browning, director and co-founder of Moms Clean Air Force, pointed out in a Tuesday statement that "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."
The 2009 endangerment finding underpins all federal climate policy. David Arkush of the watchdog Public Citizen—which is also part of the diverse coalition behind the new letter—warned at the time that if allowed to stand, the repeal "will hamstring the government's ability to combat the most terrible environmental threat in human history, harming Americans and the world for decades to come."
Young Americans and a coalition of environmental and public health organizations swiftly filed a pair of lawsuits over the rollback. Another group of 24 states, joined by various US cities and counties, sued last week. The most recent filing is expected to be consolidated with the first coalition's case, according to The New York Times, "making for one of the largest legal challenges to date against the Trump administration's unraveling of federal climate policy."
The new letter stresses the consequences of that unraveling, stating that "because of Zeldin's directives, we will suffer more health-damaging air pollution and be exposed to more toxic chemicals in our homes, in our food, in our products, and in our water. Zeldin's rollbacks will lead to more carbon dioxide and methane pollution that will contribute to worsening climate disasters."
"Families across the country, whether rural or urban, are already struggling with the consequences of Zeldin's actions," the letter adds. "The damage he is doing will span generations. Zeldin is deepening environmental injustices and will leave a terrible legacy for our children and grandchildren."
We refuse to stay silent while Lee Zeldin treats our lives like a line item to be deleted. The EPA is for the people, not polluters. His time is up; Lee Zeldin must go. #GameOverZeldin www.gameoverzeldin.com
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— Physicians for Social Responsibility - National (@psr.org) March 24, 2026 at 12:12 PM
CAC director Margie Alt declared Tuesday that "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."
"Zeldin ignored science as well as the legal and moral precedent," she said. "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."
Other organizations that signed on to the letter include Beyond Plastics, Cherokee Concerned Citizens, Clean Air Council, Clean Water Action, Climate Hawks Vote, Earthjustice, Environmental Working Group, Environmental Protection Network, GreenLatinos, Indivisible Action Coalition, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Service Employees International Union, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and more.
"Administrator Zeldin's established pattern of placing polluter profits above the health and safety of people across the country cannot stand," said UCS president and CEO Gretchen Goldman. "The science establishing harm to human health and the environment from global warming emissions is undeniable. The unprecedented, climate-fueled heatwave a large swath of the United States has been experiencing is only the latest example."
"The public deserves an EPA administrator who will face the challenge of the climate crisis and fossil fuel and toxics pollution head on with proven policy solutions," she argued, "not actively serve as an agent of destruction beholden to the whims of oil, gas, and chemical industry executives and an authoritarian, anti-science US president."
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'A Wake-Up Call': Scientists Find 2025 Among Hottest Years on Record
"2025 was full of stark reminders of the urgent need to cut climate pollution, invest in clean energy, and tackle the climate crisis now."
Dec 30, 2025
Climate change driven by human burning of fossil fuels helped make 2025 one of the hottest years ever recorded, a scientific report published Monday affirmed, prompting renewed calls for urgent action to combat the worsening planetary emergency.
Researchers at World Weather Attribution (WWA) found that "although 2025 was slightly cooler than 2024 globally, it was still far hotter than almost any other year on record," with only two other recent years recording a higher average worldwide temperature.
For the first time, the three-year running average will end the year above the 1.5°C warming goal, relative to preindustrial levels, established a decade ago under the landmark Paris climate agreement.
"Global temperatures remained very high and significant harm from human-induced climate change is very real," the report continues. "It is not a future threat, but a present-day reality."
"Across the 22 extreme events we analyzed in depth, heatwaves, floods, storms, droughts, and wildfires claimed lives, destroyed communities, and wiped out crops," the researchers wrote. "Together, these events paint a stark picture of the escalating risks we face in a warming world."
The WWA researchers' findings tracked with the findings of United Nations experts and others that 2025 would be the third-hottest year on record.
According to the WWA study:
This year highlighted again, in stark terms, how unfairly the consequences of human-induced climate change are distributed, consistently hitting those who are already marginalized within their societies the hardest. But the inequity goes deeper: The scientific evidence base itself is uneven. Many of our studies in 2025 focused on heavy rainfall events in the Global South, and time and again we found that gaps in observational data and the reliance on climate models developed primarily for the Global North prevented us from drawing confident conclusions. This unequal foundation in climate science mirrors the broader injustices of the climate crisis.
The events of 2025 make it clear that while we urgently need to transition away from fossil fuels, we also must invest in adaptation measures. Many deaths and other impacts could be prevented with timely action. But events like Hurricane Melissa highlight the limits of preparedness and adaptation: When an intense storm strikes small islands such as Jamaica and other Caribbean nations, even relatively high levels of preparedness cannot prevent extreme losses and damage. This underscores that adaptation alone is not enough; rapid emission reductions remain essential to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
“If we don’t stop burning fossil fuels very, very, quickly, very soon, it will be very hard to keep that goal” of 1.5°C, WWA co-founder Friederike Otto—who is also an Imperial College London climate scientist—told the Associated Press. “The science is increasingly clear.”
The WWA study's publication comes a month after this year's United Nations Climate Change Conference—or COP30—ended in Brazil with little meaningful progress toward a transition from fossil fuels.
Responding to the new study, Climate Action Campaign director Margie Alt said in a statement that "2025 was full of stark reminders of the urgent need to cut climate pollution, invest in clean energy, and tackle the climate crisis now."
"Today’s report is a wake-up call," Alt continued. "Unfortunately, [US President Donald] Trump and Republicans controlling Congress spent the past year making climate denial official US policy and undermining progress to stave off the worst of the climate crisis. Their reckless polluters-first agenda rolled back critical climate protections and attacked and undermined the very agencies responsible for helping Americans prepare for and recover from increasingly dangerous disasters."
"Across the country, people are standing up and demanding their leaders do better to protect our families from climate change and extreme weather," Alt added. "It's time those in power started listening.”
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In 'Latest Pro-Polluter Move,' Trump EPA to End Emissions Data Collection
"EPA cannot avoid the climate crisis by simply burying its head in the sand as it baselessly cuts off its main source of greenhouse gas emissions data," said one Sierra Club campaigner.
Sep 12, 2025
Citing US President Donald Trump's anti-climate executive actions, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Friday unveiled a proposal to end a program that requires power plants, refineries, landfills, and more to report their emissions.
While Zeldin claimed that "the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape that does nothing to improve air quality," experts and climate advocates emphasized the importance of the data collection, which began in 2010.
"President Trump promised Americans would have the cleanest air on Earth, but once again, Trump's EPA is taking actions that move us further from that goal," Joseph Goffman, who led the EPA Office of Air and Radiation during the Biden administration, said in a statement from the Environmental Protection Network, a group for former agency staff.
"Cutting the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program blinds Americans to the facts about climate pollution. Without it, policymakers, businesses, and communities cannot make sound decisions about how to cut emissions and protect public health," he explained.
As The New York Times reported:
For the past 15 years, the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program has collected data from about 8,000 of the country's largest industrial facilities. That information has helped guide numerous decisions on federal policy and has been shared with the United Nations, which has required developed countries to submit tallies of their emissions.
In addition, private companies often rely on the program's data to demonstrate to investors that their efforts to cut emissions are working. And communities often use it to determine whether local facilities are releasing air pollution that threatens public health.
"By hiding this information from the public, Administrator Zeldin is denying Americans the ability to see the damaging results of his actions on climate pollution, air quality, and public health," Goffman said. "It's a further addition to the deliberate blockade against future action on climate change—and yet another example of the administration putting polluters before people's health."
Sierra Club's director of climate policy and advocacy, Patrick Drupp, stressed Friday that "EPA cannot avoid the climate crisis by simply burying its head in the sand as it baselessly cuts off its main source of greenhouse gas emissions data."
"The agency has provided no defensible reason to cancel the program; this is nothing more than EPA's latest action to deny the reality of climate change and do everything it can to put the fossil fuel industry and corporate polluters before people," he added. "The Sierra Club will oppose this proposal every step of the way.”
Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, similarly said that "the Trump administration's latest pro-polluter move to eliminate the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is just another brazen step in their Polluters First agenda."
Responding to the administration's claim that the proposal would save businesses up to $2.4 billion in regulatory costs, Alt said that "under the guise of saving Americans money, this is an attempt on the part of Trump, Lee Zeldin, and their polluter buddies to hide the ball and avoid responsibility for the deadly, dangerous, and expensive pollution they produce."
"If they succeed, the nation's biggest polluters will spew climate-wrecking pollution without accountability," she warned. "The idea that tracking pollution does 'nothing to improve air quality' is absurd," she added. "If you don't measure it, you can't manage it. Hiding information and allowing fossil fuel companies to avoid accountability are the true goals of this rule."
The Trump admin is now proposing to kill the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which since 2010 has required 8,000+ coal plants, refineries, and factories to report their climate pollution.Without it, polluters get a free pass.No reporting = no accountability.
— Climate Action Now (@climateactapp.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 7:04 PM
BlueGreen Alliance executive director Jason Walsh declared that "the Trump administration continues to prove it does not care about the American people and their basic right to breathe clean air. This flies in the face of the EPA's core mission—to protect the environment and public health."
"The proposal is wildly unpopular with even industry groups speaking against it because they know the value of having this emissions data available," he noted. "Everybody in this country deserves to know the air quality in their community and how their lives can be affected when they live near high-emitting facilities."
“Knowledge is power and—in this case—health," he concluded. "The administration shouldn't be keeping people in the dark about the air they and their neighbors are breathing."
This proposal from Zeldin came a day after the EPA moved to reverse rules protecting people from unsafe levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called "forever chemicals," in US drinking water, provoking similar criticism. Earthjustice attorney Katherine O'Brien said that his PFAS decision "prioritizes chemical industry profits and utility companies' bottom line over the health of children and families across the country."
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'Sigh of Relief' as Supreme Court Gives EPA Another Temporary Win
"Fossil fuel interests lost, and clean air won," one group declared.
Oct 16, 2024
The climate movement on Wednesday welcomed a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, the third temporary win for the Biden administration's environmental policies this month.
Although the right-wing justices have a record of rulings that have alarmed environmental and public health groups, the high court declined to block an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule intended to limit power plants' planet-heating pollution as a legal challenge to the April policy plays out.
"Given its rulings in recent years undercutting environmental protections, the refusal of the majority on the Supreme Court to block this vital rule is a victory for common sense. This warrants a sigh of relief from the millions of Americans experiencing the impact of the climate crisis," said Meredith Hankins, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"Today's ruling rejects the latest abuse of the Supreme Court's shadow docket by industry and some state attorneys general. The high court made the right call," she continued. "The Supreme Court evidently saw through their phony arguments."
"Power producers don't need immediate relief from modest standards that kick in eight years from now. And states have plenty of time to begin their planning process," Hankins stressed. "Now the case goes back to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is moving quickly to decide the merits of this case. We will be helping to defend the standards there. The climate crisis demands that we do."
Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, similarly said that "the climate crisis is actually an emergency affecting tens of millions of people across the globe every day. Today the court rejected the big polluters' attempt to seek an emergency stay based on their trumped-up allegations. We are in the middle of what will be the hottest year on record, with devastating and deadly extreme storms occurring regularly."
"The EPA's carbon pollution standards for power plants set reasonable targets for utilities and states to cut their carbon pollution, allowing years for them to meet those goals. The Supreme Court's decision rejected the big polluter arguments against slashing carbon pollution and paved the way for less climate pollution in the future," Alt added. "Of course, the fight isn't over. The D.C. Circuit must still rule on the merits. We support the EPA's authority to set commonsense pollution protections to slash climate pollution and protect our kids and communities from climate change and other dangerous air pollution."
The decision came after the justices in early October rejected industry-backed petitions to issue injunctions on new Biden administration rules for methane and mercury. However, conservative Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in Wednesday's decision due to financial conflicts and Justice Clarence Thomas said he would have granted the emergency request from GOP-led states and groups to block the rule.
Additionally, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, said the states and groups "have shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits as to at least some of their challenges," but there is no need for emergency action at this time "because the applicants need not start compliance work until June 2025," so "they are unlikely to suffer irreparable harm" before a final decision.
As The New York Times reported Wednesday:
The dispute was the latest bid by Republican-led states to undercut the Biden administration's ambitious climate agenda. The challenge carries similarities to a case the Supreme Court considered in the term that ended in July. Three states, Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia, joined with industry groups to challenge an EPA proposal aimed at limiting the flow of air pollution across state lines, asking the Supreme Court to intervene even as the challenge continued to be litigated in lower courts.
In June, the justices paused the proposal, known as the "good neighbor" plan, which requires factories and power plants in the West and Midwest to cut ozone pollution that makes its way into Eastern states.
Although green groups are pushing to preserve the April policy, some have argued that the Biden administration should have gone further with its actions to combat the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
Climate Justice Alliance interim executive director KD Chavez said Wednesday that while the group applauds the path the latest Supreme Court decision "charts for what can be construed as a coal phaseout, this rule is still riddled with loopholes that give a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry to continue operations and experiment on frontline communities by exposing them to the dangers and health effects of unproven technologies such as carbon capture and storage."
"The rule does not go far enough to push the needle towards a fossil fuel phaseout and a just transition for the energy sector, the communities where energy projects are sited, and the workers who could tap into renewable energy jobs," Chavez emphasized. "Frontline communities deserve more, and given this rule won't be applied until next year, we will continue to work to ensure stronger power plant regulations that meet the growing threat of climate catastrophe we all currently face."
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Green Groups Cheer $7 Billion in 'Solar for All' Grants
"Solar for All is exactly the type of investment the country needs to re-imagine our clean energy future," said one campaigner. "It's great to see President Biden jumpstart this landmark program."
Apr 22, 2024
Climate action advocates on Monday celebrated the Biden administration's Earth Day announcement that it is distributing $7 billion in Solar for All grants "to develop long-lasting solar programs that enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy and benefit from distributed residential solar, lowering energy costs for families, creating good-quality jobs in communities that have been left behind, advancing environmental justice, and tackling climate change."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agencyestimates that the awards—which are going to 60 applicants, including states, territories, tribal governments, municipalities, and nonprofits—will fund solar projects that positively impact over 900,000 households nationwide while reducing 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. The grant competition was made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed in August 2022.
"The United States can and must lead the world in transforming our energy systems away from fossil fuels," said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who joined Biden on Monday to announce the solar grants—$62.45 million in funding will go to his state—and the Vermont Climate Corps.
"The Solar for All program—that I successfully championed—will not only combat the existential threat of climate change by making solar energy available to working class families, it will also substantially lower the electric bills of Americans and create thousands of good-paying jobs," noted Sanders. "This is a win for the environment, a win for consumers, and a win for the economy."
The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation and Indigenized Energy will get over $135 million to work on solar projects in tribal communities across five states.
Cody Two Bears, executive director of Indigenized Energy, said that the award "will serve as a catalyst for tribes and energy justice communities like ours who are leading the way in building our own clean energy systems within our lands."
"This is a once-in-a-generation award that will begin to transform how tribes achieve energy sovereignty," Two Bears added. "The shift from extractive energy to regenerative energy systems will be the legacy we leave for our future generations."
Margie Alt, director of Climate Action Campaign (CAC), a coalition of a dozen national groups, highlighted both the emissions cuts and that in low-income communities across the United States, "families will see savings—approximately $400 per household."
"The president also announced the launch of the ClimateCorps.gov—a new website featuring 2,000 new job listings in climate and conservation," she pointed out. After years of pressure from campaigners, Biden in September announced the American Climate Corps, which was inspired by former President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps.
"We're thankful to the Biden administration for making these priorities a reality," said Alt. "While Republicans in Congress make every attempt to roll back climate progress, climate champions in Congress and throughout the administration are standing strong in their commitment to America's clean energy future; a future where all Americans have access to clean energy, good-paying jobs in the clean energy industry, and see direct savings from this clean energy boom."
Paula García, senior energy analyst and energy justice lead at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which is part of the CAC coalition, also applauded the awards, saying that "the Solar for All grant program is a key part of the larger suite of clean energy investments advanced by President Biden and Congress that will help the United States combat climate change."
"Directing investments toward low-income and disadvantaged communities is imperative to ensuring a just transition to clean energy," García stressed. "If we don't prioritize these populations, we risk exacerbating historical injustices and piling additional burdens on those who have been disproportionately affected by environmental harm."
"The announcement of these grants is an important step forward," she continued. "While UCS research has shown clearly that more ambition is needed to meet climate goals, phase out fossil fuels, and advance environmental justice, the Solar for All program will help create much needed momentum toward ensuring the many benefits of a decarbonized economy, including public health protections, reduced consumer energy costs, and increased energy resilience, are reaching everyone."
Jean Su, who directs the Center for Biological Diversity's Energy Justice program, similarly said that "Solar for All is exactly the type of investment the country needs to re-imagine our clean energy future."
"Broad community-based solar is our brightest hope for protecting people and our climate from the scourge of fossil fuels," she added. "These targeted investments mean low-income families get clean energy that is affordable, resilient, and protects our ecosystems. It's great to see President Biden jumpstart this landmark program. I look forward to its expansion, along with steps to curb fossil fuels with a climate emergency declaration."
Her group and the youth-led Sunrise Movement are among the organizations that have long demanded a climate emergency declaration from Biden, who is reportedly reconsidering it in the wake of the hottest year in human history and as he prepares for a November rematch against former Republican President Donald Trump—whose election could mean a surge in planet-heating pollution, according to an analysis published last month.
Emphasizing the difference between the Democratic Party and the GOP, climate reporter David Roberts called the solar grants "amazing stuff that would not happen if Republicans were in charge" and said, "Thanks Biden!"
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Ticker Shows Climate Inaction Cost US Nearly $3,000 Per Second in 2023
"This exorbitant price tag, driven by an unparalleled number of weather and climate disasters, reinforces the urgent need for the Biden administration to use every tool at their disposal," said one campaigner.
Feb 23, 2024
After an unprecedented number of billion-dollar extreme weather disasters across the United States last year, advocacy groups on Friday released an updated "Cost of Inaction Ticker" estimating the price of not tackling the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
Launched by the Climate Action Campaign and other groups in 2022, the ticker is based on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which found that 2023 was the hottest year on record and the 28 disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage collectively cost Americans at least $92.9 billion, or $2,945.84 per second.
To put that $2,945.84 into perspective, the coalition behind the ticker noted on its webpage that the per-second cost is comparable to about two months of rent, four months of childcare, or seven months of car or health insurance payments.
"Every day that goes by without climate action is estimated to cost at least $254 million, based on recent trends, and the average yearly cost of inaction for the last five years has averaged $120.6 billion or $3,824/second," the coalition warned.
There's also a human toll, the coalition acknowledged, pointing out that the 28 major disasters documented by NOAA last year led to "at least 492 deaths, the eighth-most disaster-related fatalities for the contiguous U.S. in the last four decades."
Last year's costliest U.S. disasters included 17 severe weather or hail events, four flooding events, two tornado outbreaks, two tropical cyclones, one drought and heatwave, one winter storm, and one wildfire—which killed 101 people in Maui.
The ticker update comes less than nine months away from the U.S. general election. Democratic President Joe Biden is seeking reelection and former President Donald Trump is the likely Republican nominee—despite trying to overturn his 2020 loss, inciting an insurrection, and facing a total of 91 felony charges across four ongoing criminal cases.
In the 2020 election cycle, Biden campaigned on bold climate promises. While he has won praise for some progress, such as signing the Inflation Reduction Act two years ago and pausing approvals for liquefied natural gas exports last month, the Democrat has also been criticized from groups who helped elect him for backing certain oil and gas projects, blowing off the latest United Nations climate summit, continuing fossil fuel lease sales, and declining to declare a national climate emergency.
Climate Action Campaign's Margie Alt framed the ticker update as further proof that Biden must go much further on climate action.
"Every passing moment, the relentless onslaught of climate change inflicts a toll on our environment, our health, and our wallets—to the tune of nearly $3,000 per second," she said Friday. "This exorbitant price tag, driven by an unparalleled number of weather and climate disasters, reinforces the urgent need for the Biden administration to use every tool at their disposal to cut climate pollution."
"The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Biden in 2022, has provided a glimpse of the progress that can be made, delivering unprecedented investments to confront the escalating climate crisis," she added. "However, the Cost of Inaction Ticker shows just how much still needs to be done and the price we pay by failing to act."
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Green Groups Slam 'Harmful' GOP Vote to Kill Biden Clean Vehicle Rule
"House GOP leaders should be ashamed for trying to thwart the EPA, and its authority under the Clean Air Act, to limit dangerous and deadly pollution," said one campaigner.
Dec 06, 2023
Climate and environmental campaigners on Wednesday bristled as the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted to block a proposed Biden administration rule meant to accelerate the transition from gasoline-powered to electric automobiles.
House lawmakers voted 221-197, almost entirely along party lines, in favor of H.R. 4468, the so-called Choice in Automobile Retail Sales Act of 2023. The office of House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) claimed the bill "stops President [Joe] Biden's agenda to force Americans to drive electric vehicles, which will cede our auto future to China."
However, Democratic Congressman Paul Tonko of New York condemned the measure during a House floor speech Wednesday, asserting that "we should be putting our clean energy standards in overdrive to protect consumers and our planet, not reversing course on vital electric vehicle policies."
"We should be putting our clean energy standards in overdrive to protect consumers and our planet, not reversing course on vital electric vehicle policies."
When the Biden administration unveiled its proposed clean transportation standard in April, progressive critics argued that it did not go far enough. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) projects that under the most robust version of its
proposal—which, if implemented, would take effect in 2027—electric vehicles could account for two-thirds of all new U.S. light-duty automobile sales by the 2032 model year. Last year, just 6% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. were electric.
A coalition of green groups slammed H.R. 4468 this week, writing to congressional leaders that "rather than recognize the twin crises of unmitigated climate change and public health impacts from transportation pollution and the transition to zero-emission vehicles underway, this bill aims to stem the tide of progress towards clean air and a healthy future."
"We need to move forward," the groups added, "not backward."
Margie Alt, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Climate Action Campaign, said in a statement that "today's vote on H.R. 4468 is a cynical and tremendously harmful attempt by some in Congress to placate their deep-pocketed fossil fuel executive and lobbyist allies."
"House GOP leaders should be ashamed for trying to thwart the EPA, and its authority under the Clean Air Act, to limit dangerous and deadly pollution from light duty and medium duty vehicles and trucks," she continued. "Cleaner cars standards protect all Americans from the significant respiratory and other health impacts of tailpipe pollution, not to mention limit the impacts of the climate crisis from a key source of climate pollution."
"Vehicle pollution endangers millions of Americans," Alt added, "particularly vulnerable Americans living near highways and high-traffic corridors."
H.R. 4468 has little chance of passing the Senate and even if it did, the White House has signaled that Biden will veto the measure. The White House Office of Management and Budgetsaid Monday that the GOP proposal "would catastrophically impair EPA's ability to issue automotive regulations that protect public health, save consumers money, strengthen American energy security, and protect American investments in the vehicle technologies of the future."
Republican lawmakers on Wednesday also advanced a raft of what GOP leaders called "American energy solutions" that critics slammed as damaging to the climate, environment, Indigenous rights, and frontline communities. These bills include H.R. 6009, a measure introduced by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) that would force taxpayers to foot the bill for cleaning up oil and gas wells on federal lands.
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