Environmental Justice Caucus Co-Chairs Duckworth, Booker, Markey Slam Trump Administration for Plan to Eliminate EPA’s Ability to Protect Public Health from Climate Change

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Today, U.S. Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA)—co-chairs of theU.S. Senate Environmental Justice Caucus—issued the following statement after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announcedhis proposal to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding, a landmark determination that requires the EPA to address greenhouse gas emissions and pollution because of the threat that climate change poses to public health and welfare. By rescinding the endangerment finding, the Trump administration will effectively declaw the EPA, giving big businesses a green light to pollute our air and devastate environmental justice communities.
“Once again, the Trump Administration is sacrificing our children’s future to protect polluters in the present. Trump and Zeldin are annihilating the key legal foundation that requires our government to act on climate change because it threatens the health of Americans—their repeal of the endangerment finding is ignorant, runs counter to scientific fact and will put lives at risk. Environmental justice communities are particularly threatened by this wrong-headed decision, since they are most exposed to climate impacts and have the fewest resources to protect themselves. The Trump Administration must reverse this decision—it flies in the face of science, the law and our moral responsibility to protect our future.”

As co-chairs of theSenate Environmental Justice Caucus, Duckworth, Booker and Markey have long pushed to strengthen and defend environmental justice efforts across the country. Earlier this month, the threecondemned Republicans’ cutsto environmental justice grants that were included in Donald Trump’s Big, Beautiful Betrayal. Earlier this week, Markeyheld a press conferenceoutside EPA headquarters to rail against the Trump Administration’s plans to rescind the endangerment finding. In March, Duckworth and Bookercondemned the Trump Administrationfor shutting down all of EPA’s environmental justice offices and slashing over 30 EPA regulations that have helped protect our nation’s public health and the environment for decades.
In February, Duckworth, Booker and Markey—along with U.S. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE)—urged EPA Administrator Zeldinto reopen the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (OEJECR), which Duckworth and Booker led the charge to create. Duckworth, Booker and Markey alsohelped introduce legislationthat would permanently codify the Office of Environmental Justice within the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) in response to Attorney General Bondi’s order eliminating all environmental justice efforts at the DOJ.
For years, Duckworth and Booker have led the charge pushing for theirA. Donald McEachin Environmental Justice For All Act—the most comprehensive environmental justice legislation in history—which would help achieve health equity and climate justice for all, particularly in underserved communities and communities of color that have long been disproportionately harmed by environmental injustices and toxic pollutants.

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