WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 29, 2025) – During a summer of deadly floods and with tens of millions of people sweltering under a dangerous heat dome, the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said he would move to repeal the EPA’s landmark judgment that climate change is a threat to Americans’ health and welfare.

The following is a comment from Christy Goldfuss, executive director of NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“As Americans reel from deadly floods and heat waves, the Trump administration is trying to argue that the emissions turbocharging these disasters are not a threat. It boggles the mind and endangers the nation’s safety and welfare.

“The American people support commonsense action to address the pollution causing climate change, but the EPA is trying to abandon its responsibility to protect us from climate disasters. We need to act now to protect our families and the environment. Instead, the EPA is handing the planet over to oil and gas lobbyists.

“The administration’s move to jettison these standards flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision directing the agency to follow the science. And the science is irrefutable: continuing to spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will worsen climate impacts and endanger human health and welfare. Risks that seemed far in the future in 2009 are now everyday reality for millions of Americans.

“The EPA wants to shirk its responsibility to protect us from climate pollution, but science and the law say otherwise. NRDC’s lawyers and scientists are not going to let that happen without a fight. If EPA finalizes this illegal and cynical approach, we will see them in court.”

For more on the legal aspects of the endangerment finding, see this blog from David Doniger.

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd).