
Yesterday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced its proposal to repeal a decade-old decision known as the “endangerment finding,” which serves as the legal basis for greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change and therefore harming human health. This, in turn, gives the EPA the authority to properly fulfill its mission to protect human health and the environment by regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
In response to this proposal, YECA’s National Organizer & Spokesperson, Lauren Kim, released the following statement:
“Young Evangelicals for Climate Action was founded over ten years ago by young Christians with a desire to put their faith into action in order to meet the urgency of this current moment for our environment and to secure our future from the dangerous impacts of climate change. This is why we’ve spent years fighting for common-sense reductions in climate-warming greenhouse gas pollution. These efforts are usually closely in line with the EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. However, yesterday's announcement marks a sharp departure from this mission and from the important climate progress made in recent years.
“We are extremely discouraged by this announcement and the unjust impacts it will have on the health and safety of communities nationwide. As the dangers of more frequent and intense extreme weather events strike more towns across the country and we see vulnerable populations continue to suffer the consequences in an outsized way, we should be putting greenhouse gas reductions into action, not rolling them back. This decision is detrimental to our fight for faithful and just climate action and to our vision for a more just, equitable, and loving world.”