As such, the number unhealthy air days has increased and Vermont’s queen city, Burlington, has dropped off the list of cities with some of the cleanest air. For a growing number of warm summer days, outside activity has become dangerous for sensitive groups and, on bad days, for everyone. It has also increased visible haze, veiling the scenic backdrops Vermonters love.
Air pollution is not the only recent climate change related risk threatening lives and health. The region now sees 50% more precipitation than it did in 1995. With steep hills and narrow valleys, this means flooding. Hurricane Irene devastated countless towns in 2011. A 2023 flood placed the state’s capital under water and 2024 flooding almost submerged the capital again and washed away buildings and homes in a nearby village. Based on disaster declarations, Washington County—home to Montpelier—is now tied for the second-most disaster-prone county in the nation.
My little city of Montpelier, Vermont is not unique. Unprecedented floods, fires, and heat waves have devastated communities from Asheville to central Texas to Los Angeles. All of which makes it a puzzling time for the entity entrusted to protect the environment and public health—the Environmental Protection Agency—to decide that the emissions that cause climate change are no longer something it needs to concern itself with.
The Endangerment Finding
In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007) that the term “air pollutant” in the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) encompasses greenhouse gases that cause warming such as carbon dioxide and methane. In the case, the Court rejected an argument by the EPA that the CAA did not authorize it to regulate gases that cause climate change.
Instead, in a 5-4 decision, the Court concluded that it was “unambiguous” that “greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act’s capacious definition of ‘air pollutant.'” Since the Court concluded that the EPA had authority to regulate GHG emissions, the EPA was obligated under the Act to determine whether GHGs “cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and welfare.”
In 2009, after an exhaustive review of the overwhelming science, the EPA concluded that six GHGs endanger public health and public welfare. It also concluded that the GHG emission from new motor vehicles “cause or contribute” to climate change. When this finding was challenged, a federal appeals court found that the EPA’s conclusions were “supported by substantial evidence.”
Since 2009, the endangerment finding has been the linchpin of federal efforts to reduce harmful GHG emissions across multiple sectors, primarily the transportation and power sectors where most of the U.S. GHG emissions occur. Both the first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration rejected petitions to overturn the finding. Moreover, industry—even the fossil fuel industry—has generally come to accept the finding.
The EPA Wants to Rescind the Finding
Despite the overwhelming science, legal directive from the Supreme Court, and acceptance by industry, the second Trump Administration is aggressively moving to rescind this scientifically supported finding, mocking it as “the holy grail of the climate change religion.” It is also proposing to repeal all GHG emission standards for vehicles established since the finding issued in 2009.
Its rationales are both expected and surprising. Primarily, the EPA argues that the Clean Air Act does not grant it the authority to regulate pollutants unless they contribute to local or regional exposures. It is also contending that it cannot regulate pollution where the link between the pollution emitted and the harms caused appears attenuated—in essence arguing that because the link between emissions from traffic and the harms of climate change are not direct because other factors and emissions lead to climate change as well, EPA has no duty to regulate these emissions.
As the proposal puts it, “emissions from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines in the United States do not have a sufficiently close connection to the adverse impacts identified in the Endangerment Finding to fit within the legal meaning of ‘cause’ or ‘contribute.’” This argument, some legal experts have alleged, is effectively a recycling of the failed argument that the EPA lost in Massachusetts v. EPA.
Given that many legal scholars feel that the EPA is on thin legal ground, it has concocted a stew of other rationales, likely hoping at least one will find a receptive ear with the courts.
These arguments include: climate change science is uncertain (which a recently-released Department of Energy report tries to bolster); there was not direction from Congress to regulate GHG emissions; technology does not exist that would meaningfully address the impacts of GHG emissions; eliminating emissions from motor vehicles would be futile in meaningfully addressing climate change; and that more expensive new vehicles would result in keeping older, higher emitting cars on the road because people would be deterred from buying new cars due to higher prices.
What Can We Do?
Assuming the rescission is finalized, it will almost certainly face stiff and swift challenges in court. As indicated above, this move by the EPA is on tenuous legal and scientific grounds and the agency must convince judges that its 180 turn after 16 plus years of increasingly strong science and notable harms is not arbitrary.
If the EPA is successful in fending off challenges—and it bears noting that of the nine justices who decided Massachusetts v. EPA, the only three still on the Court were in the dissent—the overturning of the endangerment finding would undo GHG vehicle emissions standards and many, if not most, other the EPA actions to curb harmful GHG emissions.
It will also cause some immediate uncertainty—which may be more difficult for industry to navigate than a predictable set of federal regulations. In the 2011 case AEP v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court relied on the EPA’s authority to regulate GHS to find states were precluded from holding emitters liable under state common law for environmental harms from climate change.
Overturning that authority could expose emitters to potentially steep liability under state common law. It may also open the door for states like California to directly regulate tailpipe and other emissions, which could create a patchwork of regulations for industry to keep pace with.
We cannot afford the confusion or the delay. Each fraction of a degree of warming poses risks to people, communities, and wildlife. It is paramount that Congress not leave this important issue to the courts and vacillate the EPA regimes. It is past time for clear direction from Congress to ensure a just, clean, and prosperous transition to a clean energy future that accounts for carbon pollution and protects us from its growing harms.
Your voice is important in our fight to protect human health, the health of wildlife, and our environment. The EPA is required to accept comments on their proposal from the public. Take action now and tell the EPA they cannot rescind the Endangerment Finding.
Acid rain, which was largely caused by sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitric oxide/nitrogen dioxide (NOx) emissions from burning coal and fuel, was dramatically reduced by the implementation of the Clean Air Act. And following protection by the Endangered Species Act, today there are over 300,000 bald eagles in the lower 48 states, with more than 70,000 nesting pairs.
We’ve made a lot of progress on other ecological and human health issues, including air pollution, water quality, and habitat protections, but the recent rollbacks to environmental regulations proposed by the EPA threaten to reverse those gains.
Air quality has come a long way
In the past few decades, the U.S. has seen significant improvements in air quality due to the controls on emissions put into place by the Clean Air Act and enforced by the EPA. SO2 and NOx are harmful chemicals released by sources such as vehicles and power plants. The concentration of these chemicals in our air has been declining since air quality regulations led to new technologies, such as scrubbers and catalytic converters. As a result, emissions have plummeted by up to 95% since 1980.
Although many cities still do not meet air quality standards for concentrations of NOx and ozone, air quality is significantly better than the days when a thick, impenetrable smog blanketed most major cities, leading to hundreds of deaths during pollution events.
Environmental protections needed now more than ever
Notably, some pollutants, especially particulates (PM2.5) from wildfires, have recently started increasing again as extreme weather events brought hotter and more intense fires to multiple areas around the country. So now is the time to finish the job and bring air pollutant concentrations back to safe levels for everyone. It is not the time to roll back controls on vehicle and industrial emissions, slash funding for wildfire management, and close federal research labs.
Reversing habitat protections, such as the proposal to redefine “the waters of the United States” (WOTUS) in ways that will exclude most wetlands, will also have devastating consequences for our most basic environmental protections, such as access to clean water.
Wetlands are some of the most productive and diverse ecosystems on earth, removing pollutants from water, mitigating flooding, and providing habit for a variety of species. Almost half of threatened and endangered species use wetlands as habitat for at least a part of their life cycle. In addition, wetlands reduce sedimentation from our waterways, remove organic and inorganic pollutants, and reduce the impacts of both droughts and floods. This is why the Clean Water Act protected wetlands and all WOTUS by prohibiting dredging or filling without a permit.
Since the 1780s, the U.S. has lost about half of its historical wetlands. However, the rate of loss has slowed markedly since the Clean Water Act and the Swampbuster disincentive provision of the Farm Bill were passed in the 1970s and 1980s. We haven’t yet achieved the goal of no net loss of wetlands set out by President George H.W. Bush, but the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Sackett vs. EPA will set us back significantly further.
This ruling limited the definition of WOTUS to “geographic[al] features that are described in ordinary parlance as ‘streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes’ and to adjacent wetlands that are ‘indistinguishable’ from those bodies of water due to a continuous surface connection.”
This new definition, which excludes most wetlands hydrologically connected to but not “adjacent” to surface waters, makes little scientific sense. It ignores basic hydrology and ecology as argued by an amicus brief filed by 12 scientific societies representing more than 125,000 biologists, ecologists, hydrologists, and fisheries scientists.
They explained that many wetlands are directly navigable, as required by the Clean Water Act, or they contribute significantly to the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of navigable waters, per the purpose of the Act. Nevertheless, the EPA and the Army Corp of Engineers have issued a pre-publication notice of changes to the definition of WOTUS that would dramatically reduce wetland protections and allow many of America’s remaining wetlands to be destroyed.
Fighting for environmental protections
NWF is directly addressing these proposed changes throughout our many conservation, climate, and justice programs, not only with a goal of preventing rollbacks of current environmental protections, but with the much larger ambition of fulfilling all of our mission to ensure that wildlife and people thrive. This means working not just to halt but to reverse environmental harm, injustice, biodiversity loss, and climate change.
We can learn from both the successes and the losses of the past by relying on sound science—including participatory science and Indigenous knowledges—and leveraging the power and voices of a national network of affiliates, members, and supporters.
You can help by standing up for science, protecting public lands, supporting wetland protections, and learning more about why we work to support and elevate communities on the frontlines of habitat loss, climate change, and the worst sources of pollution.
NWF believes that our nation’s wildlife, fish, plants, healthy waters, clean air, and public lands are a right, not a privilege, of all people who call America home. Therefore, we also believe that government has a foundational duty to conserve and steward these public trust resources for all, including future generations, using the best available science and providing robust financial resources.
In our 89-year history, this approach has helped foster huge wins for people and wildlife, informed by sound science and the ability of democratic decision-making to make major advances in conservation a reality. We know this is possible because of what we’ve achieved so far, and because we have the knowledge and potential to achieve so much more.
My mother is a 3-time lung cancer survivor and a 6-time cancer survivor, and she also suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This is not too surprising, as minority populations are exposed to more air pollution (actually pollution generally) than their White counterparts and race is the most important predictor of exposure to environmental contamination. People who live in predominately Black communities have a greater risk of premature death from air pollution than White communities, and tend to live in areas where there are greater exposures to air pollutants, including near highways, bus terminals and other sources.
An important study, conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (where I conducted my postdoctoral studies) and published in Nature in 2022, found that racial and ethnic minorities and lower-income groups in the U.S. are at a higher risk of premature death from exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) than other population and income groups.
The proposed standards are impactful for many who suffer from the detrimental effects of air pollution, like asthma. According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Black, Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native people have the highest asthma rates, asthma deaths and asthma hospitalizations. These groups – and minority groups generally – are disproportionately affected by asthma and have the least success in asthma management. Issues stemming from systemic racism, segregation and discriminatory practices like racism play an enormous role in this observed disparity. I often tell of how my Mom and countless other poor families who could not always afford asthma medication or medical care would hold their child over a bathtub with running hot water, so that the steam from the hot water would hopefully reduce the effects of asthma attacks, thus allowing that the child to breathe easier. My Mom regularly did that very action with my younger brother.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 25 million people in the United States suffer from asthma and it is a common disease among children. Worldwide, more than 260 million people suffer from it. Black Americans are three times more likely to die from asthma than White Americans, and that increases to 10 times for Black children. In a 2020 landmark case, air pollution was listed as a cause of death by the coroner in a 9-year old Black girl’s death in the United Kingdom. The coroner said the “failure to reduce pollution levels to legal limits possibly contributed to her death, as did the failure to provide her mother with information about the potential for air pollution to exacerbate asthma.” I had an opportunity to speak with the young girl’s mother before the ruling was handed down, and I know how important it was to her to have air pollution listed as a cause of death – so that it would help prevent other air pollutant deaths. In her daughter’s case, the coroner found that air pollution induced and exacerbated her severe form of asthma.
Other issues that impact a community’s health related to air pollution include socioeconomic status, education, neighborhood and physical environment (which link directly back to systemic racism and discriminatory practices) and access to health care have a definite impact on the disparities in health and exposure.
The ramifications of these standards are important on a public health level AND a personal level for many, including people living in Cancer Alley, Africa Town, Coal Country, and so many other places where air pollution from coal-fired power plants and fossil fuel-fired plants is linked to asthma, cancer, heart and lung problems, and other illnesses.
EPA’s proposed standards are poised to save a multitude of lives, particularly those of minority communities, but also to populations generally – including in states downwind from these facilities. As a scientist and a public health professional, I am awed by the potential impact on lives this proposal by EPA will have. As an attorney, I am focused on the need to ensure that once adopted, there is strict enforcement of the standards. As a Black person and a human, I recognize that we are one step closer to decreasing the sheer number of people who suffer needlessly at the hands of those who continually place profit over people.
]]>This new rule comes as part of a broader set of regulations to reduce climate and other pollutants in the air, such as mercury pollution from power plants and factories, soot that helps cause ozone pollution, and GHG emissions from cars and trucks. The rule would establish new emissions performance standards for existing and new fossil-fuel power plants by relying heavily on installing carbon capture equipment, efficiency improvements, and co-firing fossil fuels with lower carbon fuels such as green hydrogen. The new rule would replace former President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which was thrown out by the Trump Administration.
While the Clean Power Plan was a more direct attempt to move utilities away from fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy, this new rule would not force companies to invest in any type of asset or reduce their electricity production. Rather, it would allow them to choose the route that makes sense for their business. That will vary based on the age and financial standing of each power plant. This flexibility will bolster the rule’s legal defensibility, as the Supreme Court last July prohibited the EPA from forcing a system-wide shift in electric generation while permitting plant-specific regulations. The proposed rule will rely on states to implement the overall targets by choosing the most cost-effective strategies for their region. This departure from a one-size-fits-all approach adds additional flexibility for a smooth transition to clean energy.
This rule is timely, as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) increased the value of tax credits for carbon capture and storage, making it more affordable to install this technology. It also established durable credits for installing and operating renewable power sources, helping ensure that, in most cases, they are cheaper to build and maintain than coal or gas plants. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has also deployed $11.5 billion in related carbon capture pilots and demonstrations.
These existing subsidies and incentives through the IRA for renewable energy, EVs, clean manufacturing, and other climate initiatives would get us most of the way to our climate goals. However, this new rule along with others like the car and truck emissions rule would put us firmly on the path to getting us all the way to meeting our pledges per the Paris Climate Agreement, helping to avert climate disaster for wildlife and people all over the globe.
According to the Congressional Environmental Justice for All Act Fact Sheet, People of Color are especially prone to public health hazards “living in closer proximity to hazardous sites, facing higher risk for exposure to toxic chemicals, and associated health impacts like asthma and lead poisoning” compared to their privileged counterparts, especially white community members.
Environmental Justice for All Act
Sponsored by Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) and Congressman Donald A. McEachin (D-VA), the Environmental Justice for All Act is a fundamental pathway toward environmental equity, promoting nondiscrimination toward People of Color, and promoting natural environmental restoration. It would direct resources towards communities to alleviate environmental burdens and ensure robust Tribal representation for activities impacting sacred lands.
Additionally, the bill would allow private citizens, residents, and organizations to seek legal remedies when faced with discrimination. It would require consideration of cumulative impacts in permitting decisions and ensure that permits would not be issued if the project cannot demonstrate a reasonable certainty of no harm to human health.
Key features of the bill include codifying and bolstering President Clinton’s 1994 Executive Order, which directs federal agencies to develop environmental justice strategies. It also strengthens the National Environmental Policy Act to provide early and meaningful community involvement when proposing a federal action affecting environmental justice communities. The bill was drafted with extensive feedback from public health and environmental justice advocates to put resources toward communities suffering from environmental injustice. Their work is a product of an inclusive effort to undo environmental racism by strengthening protections in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act.
Although these bedrock laws have had significant positive impacts on air and water, they have left gaps in the environmental justice movement to advance civil rights for Black and brown community members. Often, Black neighborhoods suffer from continuous barriers to health, including waste sites like the proposed mega-landfill in Cumberland County Virginia.
Across the street from Pine Grove Elementary School, is a historic institution that has educated since the Jim Crow era. Effects would include “hundreds of daily tractor-trailer trips on local roads and noxious odors emitting from the landfill threaten air quality. Leaks from landfills present unacceptable risks to local streams and wetlands, a prospect made particularly alarming considering the large percentage of residents who rely on private wells for their drinking water.” By incorporating Communities of Color into the legislative process, their voices will be heard when environmental justice strategies are enacted to help them.
The Environmental Justice for All Act strengthens preexisting civil rights environmental laws, allowing all “private citizens, residents, and organizations to seek legal remedy when faced with discrimination,” requiring “consideration of cumulative impacts in permitting decisions and ensures that permits will not be issued if the project cannot demonstrate a reasonable certainty of no harm to human health,” and ensuring “robust Tribal representation throughout the NEPA process for an activity that could impact an Indian Tribe, including activities impacting off-reservation lands and sacred sites.”
As of July 27th, the House Natural Resources Committee passed the Environmental Justice for All Act. This legislation is supported by the Choose Clean Water Coalition, hosted by the National Wildlife Federation. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that harnesses the collective power of more than 270 organizations, the Coalition advocates for clean rivers and streams in communities across the Chesapeake Bay region. We encourage all members of the House of Representatives to support this transformative legislation, and for the Senate to pass it as well.
Not only does this bill deliver long overdue acknowledgment of the history of oppression towards frontline communities, but its passage would increase access to nature, improve public health, and uplift communities. And with this progress, we would be one step closer to the American flag standing as a symbol of Justice for All.
In response, Nixon took a bold step forward for environmental protection by moving to house all environmental regulatory powers of the federal government under one agency’s roof. As a result, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was born fifty years ago on December 2, 1970. Since then, it’s worked to safeguard environmental and human health.
The EPA itself is a tribute to how far our thinking about the environment has come. While previous congressional action created and conserved federal public lands, President Nixon’s formation of the EPA was an acknowledgment by the government that humans are part of nature.
Half a Century of Cleaning Up Water, Air, and Land
In his December 2 speech before Congress, President Nixon declared that clean air, clean water, and environmental protections were part of ‘the birthright of every American.’ He acknowledged that this is a freedom the government can’t deliver if pollutants and toxins are harming both our people and wildlife, alike. Thankfully, the EPA has put in place many regulations to uphold its promises to the American people to safeguard both human and environmental health in its 50 years of existence.
With the bipartisan passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and Clean Water Act of 1972, Congress entrusted the EPA with the authority to set regulations on air and water pollutants, thus securing baseline environmental health protections.
Other big wins include the National Environmental Policy Act (1969), Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (1980, also known as “Superfund”). Additionally, the Endangered Species Act (1973), while not primarily enforced by the EPA, intersects with its pesticide work. Altogether, these laws permit the EPA to ensure that our country is free from polluted drinking water, dangerous industrial and chemical waste, abandoned hazardous waste sites, and activities that threaten our most vulnerable wildlife populations. In other words, they’ve made the America we know today possible.
The EPA Under Attack
Unfortunately, President Donald Trump’s administration has worked to undo these essential landmark protections. It’s made over 100 environmental rollbacks—most of which have been done via the EPA—but that hasn’t stopped President Trump or current EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler from greenwashing their rollbacks. Most egregious are their attacks on common-sense regulations such as limits on mercury emissions from power plants and other toxic air pollutants.
While the EPA was founded on sound scientific principle, these attacks on science—and especially the administration’s decision to strip the words “climate change” from governmental websites—demonstrate that the agency is not immune to flawed policymaking.
The EPA’s Next 50 Years
President-elect Joe Biden’s commitment to fighting climate change and supporting policymaking grounded in science creates an opportunity to move forward and restore the EPA’s reputation as one of the most important agencies we have to protect clean air, water, land, wildlife, and people.
Beyond rebuilding the ground lost during the Trump administration, we must continue expanding EPA’s commitment to environmental justice and rectifying policies that have disproportionately burdened communities of color with pollution. Sen. Cory Booker’s proposed Environmental Justice Legacy Pollution Cleanup Act serves as a great example of the kind of legislation we should be pushing forward. After all, the EPA was created to protect not just the environment but the millions of people who call this nation home and those protections must apply to all Americans, not just some.
Looking toward the next 50 years of the EPA, it is vital that we take action to safeguard human and environmental health and ensure a reaffirmed commitment to science-based policies so that both people and wildlife can thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Ensure that wildlife like the great blue heron can thrive by acting today to protect healthy habitat, clean water, and vulnerable wildlife.
]]>Confronting Climate Change
The Supreme Court has a lot to say about whether the clear science behind climate change should inform how we implement laws designed to protect us from the threats of increasing carbon pollution. One of these decisions is Massachusetts v. EPA, a 5-4 holding where Justice Ginsburg was a deciding vote for the liberal majority. The 2007 case held that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can and must regulate greenhouse gases in its vehicle tailpipe emission standards under the Clean Air Act. The impacts of this decision are still being worked out and it may come back to the Supreme Court.
A 6-3 conservative majority also poses a risk of diminishing the power of the National Environmental Policy Act—the nation’s environmental reporting statute—in addressing climate change. This law requires that agencies take a “hard look” at environmental impacts before completing any major federal action. The Trump Administration has tried to eliminate the need for agencies to look at the climate change implications of their actions. The new conservative Court may uphold these rollbacks.
Additionally, one of the special features of the Clean Air Act allows California to set fuel efficiency standards—which are higher than the national standard—for its own residents. Higher fuel efficiency standards are key to reducing carbon pollution from the transportation sector, which is now the country’s largest source of emissions. Once California acts to set higher limits, other states may then choose to adopt those tougher limits. The Trump Administration is attempting to revoke California’s power to do so. If the Court upholds that action, the robust fuel standards of California, and the 13 states that have adopted the same standard, will be lost.
Impacts Beyond Climate Change
The potential impact goes well beyond climate change. For instance, in the early 2000s, the Court issued two key rulings that created confusion concerning the what waters are protected from pollution and destruction by the federal Clean Water Act. This resulted in a far narrower interpretation of what waters are covered by the Clean Water Act than were historically protected, leaving important wetlands and streams unprotected.
In the 2006 Rapanos v. United States decision, the four-justice plurality (combined with a concurrence from lone Justice Kennedy) held that the definition of “waters of the United States” within the Clean Water Act should be based on a scientific understanding of how smaller waters like seasonal streams and wetlands impact larger, downstream waters. The Rapanos ruling paved the way for President Obama’s science-based Clean Water Rule, which clarified protections for small, upper reach streams and many important wetlands that support aquatic ecosystems. This year, the administration promulgated a new rule that revokes the Clean Water Rule and is based upon the very restrictive and non-scientific view of jurisdiction waters espoused by the minority in Rapanos. Should the court revisit the Rapanos decision, it could tie EPA’s hand from protecting half of America’s wetlands and most of its stream miles – waters that provide drinking water to millions of Americans and serve as critical fish and wildlife habitat.
At the end of 2017, Congress was doing the same thing. One of the actions Congress took before leaving for its holiday recess was moving the deadline to fund the government to January 19th, and then just moved the deadline once again. By March 23rd, Congress must decide the spending levels for all federal programs for the year. But as Congress’s to-do list looks right now, our country’s wildlife may be left out to dry. So here are two things we are asking Congress to make sure are included in their to-do list when deciding federal spending in the coming weeks:
#1: No Anti-Environmental Policy Riders Attached to Spending Bills
Some of the most damaging parts of this year’s spending bills are the policy “riders” that are attached to them, which are unrelated to the spending at hand and are attached because they would likely fail on their own. Unlike the pelagic crabs that ride on sea turtles in the Caribbean to eat the turtles’ harmful parasites, the riders on these bills are anything but symbiotic.
One very troubling rider fast-tracks the repeal of the Clean Water Rule, which allows the Environmental Protection Agency to better enforce the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act helps protect our streams, rivers, and wetlands—allowing wildlife to fight back against habitat loss and degradation—and it is essential that its provisions are enforced. Other harmful riders include efforts to undermine the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, and other important environmental regulations that keep us (and our wildlife!) safe.
#2: No Funding Cuts to Important Conservation Programs
Currently, there are different proposals from the House and the Senate regarding the levels of funding for various essential conservation programs. Perhaps the most far-reaching are the proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency. In its proposal, the House suggests cutting the Agency’s budget by more than $500 million. For an agency that already has a lot on its plate, that amount of money being taken from its coffers, likely in the form of staff cuts, prevents the agency from doing its job protecting our air, waterways, lands, wildlife, and people from harmful toxins and other pollutants.
Another funding decision that is especially concerning is the drastic cut in funding for wildland fire suppression in both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior. Over the past few decades, we have seen fires grow in intensity and damage, upending countless numbers of human lives, regional economies, and wildlife populations. Just this past year, we saw the deadly effects of the wildfire in California’s Napa Valley. Current trends do not indicate that wildfires will decrease in quantity or size, which means that we should be maintaining—or better yet, increasing—federal funding to prevent megafires in the future and reduce the risk from fires that do spread.
How you can help Congress uphold these two resolutions:
Congress must understand that wildlife should not be an afterthought. The health of our animal species is interlinked with health of our own species. We exist in the same environment and all require clean air, clean water, and the preservation of wild spaces.
Here at the National Wildlife Federation, we’re working hard to make sure Congress does not scale back pro-wildlife programs, but we need your help to do it.
We do not have to choose between funding the government and protecting our animal family. We can do both, and when we do, the benefits are immeasurable.
The Clean Power Plan is the first ever federal limit on carbon pollution from power plants.
By attempting to repeal the plan, Administrator Pruitt is seeking to wipe away an historic measure that would reduce harmful carbon pollution from the U.S. power sector – one of the top two sources of carbon pollution – 32% over the next thirteen years. There is wide public support for the carbon reducing policies like the Clean Power Plan.
In response to the proposed roll back, the National Wildlife Federation President and CEO Collin O’Mara said:
In the wake of record-breaking and devastating hurricanes and wildfires, the pressing need for our leaders to take action to ensure a safe and stable climate for people and wildlife could not be more clear. Further, The Supreme Court has been crystal clear that the EPA has a statutory responsibility to act. Yet today, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence and legal obligations, the administration has willfully abdicated its responsibility to address the climate threat that imperils our communities, wildlife, and outdoor heritage.
We Need Climate Action for Wildlife
The Administration’s announcement completely disregards the climate realities facing wildlife and people. With a September defined by record-breaking storms devastating the Gulf area, Florida and the Caribbean and mega-fires raging out West, the stark realities of changing climate are upon us.
In the face of this threat, wildlife cannot afford inaction. For instance, coastal habitats are having to cope with sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion, and growing damage from storms as storm surge travels further inland. Species like the piping plover and loggerhead sea turtle are already losing nesting habitat along the East Coast as beaches are washed away.
Compounding these threats, rising temperatures are changing precipitation patterns across the U.S. and are leading to more severe drought in some states, while also causing more extreme precipitation events in other states. This is leading to warmer, shallower streams in some regions, and streams that are more prone to flooding and sediment pollution in other regions. These changes are impacting freshwater fish species that depend on the cool, clean water they have adapted to. Trout habitat is predicted to decrease by about 50 percent in the interior western U.S. by the 2080s due to changes in temperatures and other factors.
The impacts also put at risk our vibrant outdoor economy – which is worth $877 billion.
Another Step Backwards
Sadly, the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan is just the latest step in a series of actions of reality defying steps to undermine climate progress. The Administration has also joined Syria as the only country to rebuke the Paris Climate Agreement to take measures to reduce carbon pollution and work towards a goal of a safe and stable climate; instructed agencies to essentially ignore climate impacts in decision-making; disassembled scientific efforts to study and assess climate risks; left key science posts unfilled and proposed eliminating funding for climate science and renewable energy research; canceled an initiative to update federal coal leasing to account for coal’s true costs, including impacts from climate; and the list goes on.
What Repealing the Clean Power Plan Means
Administrator Pruitt cannot just repeal the Clean Power Plan via fiat. The Clean Power Plan is legally required by the Clean Air Act to curb the pollution that causes climate change –greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide – that is emitted by the country’s power sector. The obligation under the Clean Air Act to clean up this pollution has been affirmed by two Supreme Court cases.
Thus, EPA is mandated to reduce power sector carbon pollution using the “best system of emissions reductions” which considers cost, practicality and other factors.
Using this standard, the plan Administrator Pruitt is attempting to dismantle diligently constructed a flexible and effective approach that was tailored to each state’s particular energy mix. The plan relied on three primary “building blocks” to set state specific emissions targets: (1) measures at existing coal plants to make them more efficient; (2) switching from coal to cleaner burning natural gas at some plants; and (3) increasing use of renewables.
These measures are in line with and would facilitate market trends that are already occurring, as power producers move from costly, inefficient coal to cleaner sources like wind and solar energy.
In order to deconstruct this flexible and forward looking structure, the EPA must go through formal public notice and comment rulemaking and show that it has complied with the law. EPA cannot simply walk away from this obligation or replace it with hollow measures that do not protect our climate.
It is anticipated that EPA will seek to implement a plan that only achieves minor reductions at coal power plants themselves. But such reductions will fall far short of what is needed to protect wildlife from climate change, and far short of what could cost effectively be achieved by industry. It will almost certainly not meet the law’s requirements.
A Path Forward for Wildlife
As this tragic climate exacerbated summer and fall weather events have made clear, we cannot afford to slow progress on reducing harmful carbon pollution. With the Administration stubbornly opposed to addressing this pressing issue, leadership from Congress and continued leadership from states and localities to reduce emissions is paramount for the future of wildlife.
Looking backwards is not the way forward. We need to tell Administrator Pruitt to keep the Clean Power Plan in place as it is. And we need to urge Congress to enact a market-based price carbon that will fairly account for the true costs of energy generation while providing additional revenue.
[UPDATE: The proposed rule, which was signed by Administrator Pruitt on October 10, 2017, only seeks to repeal the Clean Power Plan and leaves the question of possible replacement unanswered. As expected, the proposed rule contends that any attempt to regulate considering generation shifts to cleaner sources is illegal. However, there is ample legal support that not only is such an approach legal, but that simply regulating coal plants is not the best system of emission reduction.]
National safeguards are needed to protect American health and wildlife populations from pollution and other threats. Over time, Congress has passed environmental and safety laws recognizing that corporations cannot be relied upon to self-regulate, and that states do not have the resources, capacity, and legal authority to clean up cross-border pollution problems alone.
Congress has recognized that changes in land use, technology and other factors could require new measures to ensure laws are effectively carried out, and it has required that agencies appropriately act when needed. As such, Federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture, and the Food and Drug Administration regularly establish new and revised rules under laws like the Clean Air Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act. To enact such rules, agencies must already undergo a thorough public process that requires opportunities for public and stakeholder input as well as the option for judicial review to ensure the agency action is reasonable and consistent with the underlying law passed by Congress.
The RAA would force these and other agencies to jump impossibly high and time-consuming hurdles during the rule-making process that implements laws passed by Congress. This bill is aimed at impeding agencies from carrying out their duties to protect the public by giving powerful industries an unbalanced voice in the process, prioritizing least-cost options that are less protective of public health, and making it easier for judges to discount agency experts. For more details on the Regulatory Accountability Act, read our factsheet.
There are many reasons Congress should not make it more difficult to set environmental and public safety protections. Here are just a few examples in which the RAA and similar bills would jeopardize health and safety:
1) Stable ecosystems and abundant wildlife
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) creates a framework to conserve and protect endangered and threatened species and their habitats. Determining if a species needs to be added or removed from the list of at risk species needs be left to the agencies administering the ESA, namely the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service. Yet, the Regulatory Accountability Act would threaten this science-based decision-making by putting the White House in charge of rules, and choosing politics over agency knowledge. It would make it next to impossible to both list species in need of conservation (like the recently listed rusty-patched bumblebee), and delist species that have been successfully recovered (like the Delmarva fox squirrel), crippling the Endangered Species Act.
2) Clean air
Under the Clean Air Act, the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) protect public health and welfare by regulating emissions of harmful air pollutants like lead, ozone, and particulate matter. EPA is required by law to periodically review and potentially revise these standards. It is critical that the EPA maintain the ability to make updates when data show that the American public is in danger. If the agency is hamstrung by unreasonable processes and a requirement to favor options of least cost to industry, American lives could be at risk.
3) A safe home
The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is responsible for the regulation of manufactured and imported chemicals in the United States. Section 8 (b) of TSCA requires EPA to keep a public list of each chemical substance that is manufactured or processed. This list flags substances that are harmful and have restricted use, ensuring that the public knows which chemicals have potential environmental or health impacts. Before much needed reforms were enacted last year, updating the TSCA list to include harmful substances like asbestos was extremely difficult. The Regulatory Accountability Act would bring back these backward, cumbersome processes and apply them to a wide range of environmental safeguards. It could make it impossible for the public to know if new dangerous chemicals are polluting the environment and being used in their products.
4) Clean Water
Over the past few years, there have been toxic algal outbreaks in places like Lake Erie, which poisoned the drinking water for more than 400,000 people in Toledo, Ohio. In Charleston, West Virginia, toxic chemicals that spilled into the Elk River contaminated the drinking water of more than 300,000 people. These disasters show why we need Clean Water Act safeguards to ensure safe water quality in lakes, streams, rivers, and other water bodies that provide fish and wildlife habitat as well as help replenish our drinking water supply. Clean Water Act standards help reduce nutrient pollution, develop cleanup blueprints for impaired waters, control industrial discharges, and protect against burying streams and wetlands in sediment, among other protections. Americans who support the $887 billion outdoor recreation economy by hunting, fishing, and enjoying the outdoors depend on healthy, clean waters.
Additionally, lead pipes are a serious problem in many places in the US. This water infrastructure crisis was highlighted in Flint, Michigan, exposing thousands of children to lead. For the last two years, EPA data shows that 18 million people used water systems with unsafe lead levels, violating health standards. These figures do not count unsafe water at our schools. We need public health protections under the Safe Drinking Water Act and other laws to address such problems.
However, the Regulatory Accountability Act would make it next to impossible for agencies like the EPA implement new water quality standards.
Environmental and public safety protections that already undergo vigorous public vetting do not place an unnecessary burden on industry and economic development. They are very much needed, as demonstrated again and again by stories like in Flint, Michigan. Americans want clean air and water, and they want polluters to be held accountable for their actions.
The Regulatory Accountability Act weakens agencies’ ability to safeguard public health, the environment, and wildlife from pollution and unsafe products and practices.
Please reach out to your Senators and ask them to oppose this harmful measure.