SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
union of concerned scientists
'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
[image or embed]
— 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."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump EPA Risks Health of Millions With Giveaway to Corporate Polluters That Use Cancer-Causing Gas
"Walking back key regulations for ethylene oxide sterilizer facilities is essentially giving a highly polluting industry a get-out-of-jail-free card," said one campaigner.
Mar 13, 2026
While US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Friday presented a proposed policy change as a demonstration of the Trump administration's commitment to "ensuring lifesaving medical devices remain available," public health advocates warned that relaxing rules on emissions of the cancer-causing gas ethylene oxide puts millions of Americans at risk.
As The New York Times explained: "The move revived a long-running debate about the paradoxical effects of ethylene oxide on public health. While it plays a crucial role in sterilizing lifesaving medical devices like pacemakers and syringes, long-term exposure can cause leukemia and other types of cancer among people who work in or live near medical sterilization facilities."
The EPA proposal would amend the Biden administration's 2024 National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for facilities that use ethylene oxide, which the agency estimated would have eliminated over 90% of dangerous pollution from the gas. The previous policy was cheered by organizations including Earthjustice, which sounded the alarm on Friday.
"The 2024 standards would have delivered enormous public health benefits. EPA knows that ethylene oxide is carcinogenic and determined that sterilizers can install effective and affordable pollution controls," said Earthjustice senior attorney Deena Tumeh. "EPA has no basis to repeal this well-supported rule. By rolling back the rule, the Trump EPA is bending the knee to the sterilizer industry at the expense of millions of people's health."
Darya Minovi, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists' (UCS) Center for Science and Democracy, similarly stressed that "this dangerous decision puts people across the United States and in Puerto Rico at a higher risk of breathing dangerous fumes known to cause respiratory irritation, nausea, blurred vision, headaches, and various cancers. Children are especially vulnerable to the cancer-causing harms of ethylene oxide exposure."
As Minovi detailed:
According to UCS analysis, nearly 14 million people in the United States live within five miles of at least one commercial sterilization facility, and more than 10,000 schools and childcare facilities fall within those areas. These communities are disproportionately made up of people of color or those who do not speak English as a first language...
This decision is a reckless and self-serving handout to big industry, which asked for this rule to be rolled back. This process sidestepped community input from the start and is an affront to communities that have unknowingly lived with ethylene oxide exposure for decades. These actions show, yet again, that this administration has little to no regard for the health and welfare of working people or any interest in protecting children from exposure to toxic chemicals.
Minovi declared that "ethylene oxide emissions controls need to be strengthened—not dismantled," an argument echoed by Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics and chair of the Sierra Club National Clean Air Team.
"Walking back key regulations for ethylene oxide sterilizer facilities is essentially giving a highly polluting industry a get-out-of-jail-free card. Sterilizers are some of the largest, most toxic chemical manufacturing facilities in the country,” said Williams. "Rather than regressing on key protections, these facilities need even more controls in place to ensure the safety of workers and nearby communities."
People who live near sterilizer facilities also spoke out against the proposed rule, which now faces a 45-day public comment period.
"We understand that industry applied heavy pressure to weaken the previously finalized rule. We also understand that industry remains more concerned with their profits than the lives of those who live near sterilizer facilities, like my community in Laredo," said Tricia Cortez, executive director of Rio Grande International Study Center in Texas.
"Sterilizer facilities like Midwest must be held accountable for their dangerous, cancer-causing emissions," she said. "We need an EPA that works to protect us, the people, not financial interests and corporations that continue to cause so much harm to so many."
Victor Alvarado, founder and coordinator for Comité Diálogo Ambiental, said that "I remember the EPA informing us that Steri-Tech's ethylene oxide emissions in my hometown of Salinas, Puerto Rico, were so high that we had one of the highest rates of toxic air cancer risk in the United States... Eliminating the new protections against ethylene oxide emissions is unjust."
The EPA proposal comes after President Donald Trump in July signed a series of proclamations easing pollution rules for over 100 facilities focused on energy, chemical manufacturing, iron ore processing, and sterile medical equipment. His "regulatory relief," as the Republican called it, applied to dozens of sterilization plants.
The Southern Environmental Law Center and Natural Resources Defense Council responded by filing a federal lawsuit on behalf of CleanAIRE NC, Sustainable Newton, Savannah Riverkeeper, and Virginia Interfaith Power & Light.
"We always knew the presidential exemptions issued last year were part a broader plan to put the interests of corporate polluters above the health and well-being of American families," Sustainable Newton president Maurice Carter said Friday. "But we won't stop fighting to protect our community by demanding commonsense, reasonable measures that even the EPA has said would reduce harmful emissions by 90% and lower cancer risks by 92%."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Orders Pentagon to Purchase Coal Energy in Latest Move Propping Up Climate-Wrecking, Costly Plants
“Reality doesn’t lie: Coal is a rapidly dwindling relic of the past, not a solution for the future," said one climate action advocate.
Feb 12, 2026
“The 19th century called, and it wants its fuel source back," said the president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council on Wednesday as President Donald Trump announced his latest attempt to prop up the pollution-causing, expensive coal industry with taxpayer funds—this time by ordering the Pentagon to purchase electricity directly from coal-fired power plants.
"While Americans are demanding clean, affordable energy, the Trump administration is using our tax dollars to prop up the nation’s dirtiest, least efficient power plants," said Manish Bapna of the NRDC.
At an event at the White House, Trump directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to sign long-term, taxpayer-funded contracts with coal plants that would likely have otherwise been retired in the coming years, to purchase energy to power military installations.
"Hard to think of a dumber 21st Century energy and security policy than Trump's insistence that the Pentagon buy more coal power," said the Military Emissions Gap, a UK-based project that monitors military emissions data.
Trump also announced $175 million from the Energy Department to upgrade six coal plants in Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia, and was presented with a trophy naming him the “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal" by the Washington Coal Club.
The Trump administration's persistent efforts to cancel the planned closures of large coal plants have been challenged not only by more than a dozen state governments, but by the owners of at least one of the facilities and two utilities in Colorado.
The utilities, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and Platte River Power Authority, accused the administration of violating the Takings Clause of the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment, which states that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
They argued in a regulatory filing last month that “the costs of compliance fall directly on their members and customers, who must now pay."
Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program, told the Washington Post that the administration's decision to compel coal plants to continue operating has raised household "energy bills while providing negligible benefits to consumers.”
“Each of the five plants were slated to retire because they are expensive to operate and there are cheaper sources of power available to meet consumers’ needs,” Peskoe told the Post. “Plant owners aren’t just flipping a switch to turn the plants back on—they are spending millions on maintenance, renewing expired coal contracts and rehiring workers.”
“It’s no wonder fossil fuel lobbyists are handing Trump an award today. Trump asked them for campaign cash and promised to return the favor—and now he is."
Bapna said Trump's latest actions on coal were the result of the president's campaign promise to fossil fuel executives, whom he asked for $1 billion in campaign donations and pledged to gut climate regulations in return.
“It’s no wonder fossil fuel lobbyists are handing Trump an award today. Trump asked them for campaign cash and promised to return the favor—and now he is," said Bapna. "The rest of us are left to pay the price: more heart disease and asthma attacks, higher utility bills, and more frequent unnatural disasters. This is a raw deal for our wallets, our health, and our future.”
Julie McNamara, associate policy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out that Americans will face higher electricity bills and be forced to pay for the new Department of Defense contracts at a time when "people and businesses across the country are struggling with rapidly escalating electricity costs" while other countries around the world expand their use of far cheaper renewable energy sources.
"The country has real solutions at hand—yet instead of pushing ahead with investments in the fastest, cheapest, cleanest resources available, the Trump administration is actively doing everything it can to stop the deployment of new solar and wind projects, to stop investments in energy efficiency, and to stop the buildout of modern grid infrastructure," said McNamara.
“Reality doesn’t lie: Coal is a rapidly dwindling relic of the past, not a solution for the future," she added. "The Trump administration’s flailings come with real consequences. Forcing the use of increasingly unreliable and relentlessly uneconomic coal plants will risk outages and send high electricity costs higher. Recklessly slashing health, safety, and environmental standards will harm people’s health and the environment. And opting for hollow statements and short-term bailouts fails to meaningfully deliver for the coal-dependent communities requiring actual, durable transition solutions."
Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, suggested that Trump's latest handouts to coal firms "ignores basic economics" while also proving that "coal can't compete without a taxpayer-funded bailout."
"Our military is one of the largest consumers of energy in the world," said Alt. "Instead of improving the efficiency of our military and the quality of life for those serving our country, this order saddles taxpayers with inflated energy costs while exposing millions of Americans to more toxic pollution from old, inefficient plants."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular