Press Releases

MAINE–Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, released the following statement in response to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin’s formal decision to revoke the scientific determination that underpins the government’s legal authority to combat climate change:

“The EPA’s decision to rescind the Endangerment Finding ignores decades of science and directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s landmark Massachusetts v. EPA decision, which held that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act. That ruling led to EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding that carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases endanger public health by fueling extreme heat, storms, wildfires, and disease.

“Revoking the Endangerment Finding will kneecap the federal government’s ability to fight climate change—now and in the future. By claiming that climate change poses no threat to public health, President Trump and Administrator Zeldin are making ignorance and denial the official climate policy of the U.S., while allowing the world’s biggest polluters to continue destroying our planet. 

“Greenhouse gases released from human activities are the single biggest driver of climate change. That’s not opinion or hyperbole. That’s scientific fact. To believe that extreme heat, supercharged hurricanes, crop failures, and thousand-year floods aren’t threats to public health is simply delusional. Costly and deadly extreme weather events and disasters are already impacting millions of Americans every year. 

“The EPA’s stated mission is to ‘protect human health and the environment.’ Administrator Zeldin himself has said ‘climate change is something we need to take seriously.’ And yet almost every action he has taken at the EPA does not take this threat seriously and will exacerbate climate change and the pollution it causes. This decision sends a clear message that the only thing this Administration is interested in protecting are the interests of Big Oil, the very fossil fuel companies that are responsible for this crisis.

“Climate change is an existential threat. Mitigating its worst impacts will require real, meaningful, and sustained collaboration between the public and private sectors—and government agencies that actually believe in climate science. As Ranking Member of the Subcommittee that oversees funding for the EPA, I vow to do everything in my power to reinstate the Endangerment Finding—and to ensure that this vital agency has the resources it needs to fulfill its mission of protecting human health and the environment.”

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