Contact: Kayla Ritchie, kayla@unbendablemedia.com (CJA) / Ashley Sullivan, ashley.sullivan@weact.org, (917) 837-1183 (WE ACT/EJLF) / Isella Ramirez, info@movingforwardnetwork.com, (323) 854-1857 (MFN) / Prerna Sampat, psampat@ceed.org (CEED/Equitable & Just National Climate Platform) / Stephanie Herron, sherron@comingcleaninc.org, 802-251-0203 ext.707 (EJHA)
NATIONWIDE – In response to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seeking to remove the Endangerment Finding and revoke vehicle emissions regulations, a coalition of environmental justice networks submitted written comments – signed by 100 organizations and individuals – alongside a powerful collection of testimonies that capture the real-world impacts of climate and transportation pollution and frontline and fenceline communities’ need for robust protections. The coalition of environmental justice groups warn that EPA’s decision undermines their mission and puts millions of lives at risk, placing environmental justice communities in the greatest danger. They also share a clear set of demands: The EPA must stop its proposal to revoke the Endangerment Finding and Greenhouse Gas Vehicle Standards, renew its commitment to environmental justice, restore essential funding, and commit to regulations that protect current and future generations.
The coalition, which includes the Moving Forward Network (MFN), Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), Equitable & Just National Climate Platform (EJNCP), Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform (EJHA), and the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum (EJLF) represents millions of people living in frontline and fenceline communities across the United States. With the EPA willfully ignoring its mission, while broader groups met in NYC for Climate Week, the comments and stories serve as a stark reminder: environmental justice communities are hit first and worst, and our experiences and needs will not be erased from the narrative.
Individuals and groups from California to North Carolina shared their profound concerns and examples of horrific consequences from climate and transportation pollution. Paulina López, Executive Director of the Duwamish River Community Coalition in Seattle, WA shared, “This isn’t just about statistics. It’s about the headaches, the asthma, the unexplained illnesses. It’s about our elders, our children, our families who are disproportionately impacted by pollution every single day. The impacts of climate change are already here—more flooding, hotter summers, and less clean water—and our community is on the frontlines. That’s why I’m speaking out.”
The proposal to revoke the Endangerment Finding and Greenhouse Gas Vehicle Standards effectively removes EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power plants, and other major polluters. The coalition shares that this act flies in the face of decades of what science, frontline and fenceline communities, and workers have always known: environmental and climate pollution pose a direct and growing threat to human life – most disproportionately impacting people of color and lower income.
“We live in a world where solutions for ending pollution and climate harm already exist. Yet instead of advancing a fair and healthy future, the EPA is proposing rollbacks that serve polluters and put our communities at greater risk. We cannot ignore the reality that communities of color and low income are dying from dirty air and preventable disasters. Race and zip code should not determine who breathes clean air or lives a full life. The EPA has a clear mission—and until all people are protected from environmental and health harms, that mission remains unfulfilled. We will keep raising our voices to demand the safe, just future we all deserve.” – Anastasia Gordon, Director of Federal Policy, WE ACT for Environmental Justice
“Frontline and fenceline community-based and member-powered organizations aren’t waiting to be rescued — they’re leading the way toward environmental justice. The EPA is moving to revoke the vehicle emissions standards and the Endangerment Finding, the legal foundation for regulating climate pollution. If revoked, it would dismantle Clean Air Act protections and flood our communities with even more pollution — hitting frontline and fenceline neighborhoods first and worst. This isn’t a technical change. It’s a direct attack on public health, climate justice, and our basic right to breathe clean and healthy air. We will not be erased. And we will not be silent.” -Isella Ramirez, Executive Director, Moving Forward Network
The comments share a specific rationale for why the EPA’s proposal denies the lived experience, backed by science, of the effects of pollution on public health, the environment, and the climate. This includes that 1) The proposal denies the lived experience, backed by science, of the effects of pollution on public health, the environment, and the climate. 2) The proposal does not consider the targeted and harmful effects that this “historic deregulation” effort will have on workers. 3) The proposal is based on flawed science. 4) The proposal is unlawful. 5) The proposal does not consider the benefits of climate and environmental protection.
“The Endangerment Finding ensures that the EPA can do its job and protect our health and well-being by curbing pollution. This administration’s move to repeal it is just the latest attack on all of us; showing again that they are willing to sacrifice our public health for more corporate control and profits at the expense of the rest of us. We must stand together and oppose this.” – KD Chavez, Executive Director, Climate Justice Alliance (CJA)
“The EPA’s proposed rollback of the Endangerment Finding isn’t just regulatory capture by corporate polluters — it is environmental racism. The repeal of the Endangerment Finding and the vehicle emissions regulations will empower polluters to dump even more toxic pollution on communities that live near highways, in industrial corridors of the country, primarily low-income communities, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, turning them into ‘sacrifice zones’ for shareholder profits. Our collective power, reflected in the powerful community testimonials shared in this letter, represents an antidote to environmental racism and injustice. Our climate future is worth fighting for — and our resistance today is seeding the future we desperately need.” – Byron Gudiel, Executive Director of Center for Earth, Energy & Democracy (CEED), convener of Equitable & Just National Climate Platform (EJNCP)
The EPA serves several critical functions, including developing and enforcing regulations, providing grants, and studying environmental impacts. Over the past year, we have witnessed numerous rollbacks of hard-fought, peer-reviewed, research-based, and life-saving regulations, as well as the termination of millions of dollars in critical grants. For these reasons, the coalition demands that the EPA withdraw their flawed, prejudiced proposal to rescind its 2009 Endangerment Finding and vehicle emissions standards.
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About This Coalition
Center for Earth, Energy & Democracy (CEED) is a convener of the Equitable & Just National Climate Platform (EJNCP) and is a coalition member of the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) and the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum (EJLF).
Equitable & Just National Climate Platform (EJNCP) is a coalition of EJ groups and national environmental organizations from across the country united around a shared commitment to ending the environmental racism that has left economically disadvantaged communities, Indigenous communities, Black communities, and communities of color exposed to disproportionate levels of toxic pollution and bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. Our coalition has stood strong for over five years around our shared vision for a just climate future — and our platform has grown to include over 300 co-signer organizations from all over the country.
The Environmental Justice Leadership Forum (EJLF) is a national coalition of nearly 40 organizations in 22 states who work to ensure that a diverse grassroots perspective is reflected in federal, state, and local programming and policy decisions. Organizations are based in red, blue, and swing states, including those in Appalachia, the Deep South, Northwest, Midwest, Northeast and Southwest regions. EJLF members represent Black, Latinx, Indigenous and low-income communities in large cities to rural areas. These groups are actively working together to advance key climate justice and environmental policy to ensure the protection and advancement of communities of color and low-income communities throughout the U.S. The EJLF is hosted by WE ACT for Environmental Justice. Learn more at ejforum.org and follow us @ejforum.
Moving Forward Network (MFN)The Moving Forward Network (MFN) is a national network of over 50 member organizations that centers grassroots, frontline-community knowledge, expertise, and engagement from communities across the US that bear the negative impacts of the global freight transportation system. MFN builds partnerships between these community leaders, academia, labor, big green organizations, and others to protect communities from the impacts of freight. Its diverse membership facilitates an integrated and geographically dispersed advocacy strategy that incorporates organizing, communications, research, legal and technical assistance, leadership development and movement building. This strategy respects multiple forms of expertise and builds collective power. The Moving Forward Network is a project of Windward Fund
Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) formed in 2013 to create a new center of gravity in the climate movement by uniting frontline communities and organizations into a formidable force. Our translocal organizing strategy and mobilizing capacity is building a Just Transition away from extractive systems of production, consumption and political oppression, and towards resilient, regenerative and equitable economies. We believe that the process of transition must place race, gender and class at the center of the solutions equation in order to make it a truly Just Transition.
Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform is a national network of grassroots Environmental and Economic Justice organizations and advocates in communities that are disproportionately impacted by toxic chemicals from legacy contamination, ongoing exposure to polluting facilities and health-harming chemicals in household products. EJHA supports a just transition towards safer chemicals and a pollution-free economy that leaves no community or worker behind. The EJHA network model features leadership of, by, and for Environmental Justice groups with support from additional allied groups and individual experts.
