Displaying items by tag: epa climate change

The Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C. in the William J. Clinton Federal Building. The EPA is considering changes to pollution regulations intended to at least forestall some risks of global climate change.  EPA 

With a backdrop of record heat and floods, EPA moves to deregulate greenhouse gases that are heating the planet

Stephen Smith is the executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

KNOXVILLE — July was brutal: As the Southeast sizzled under a stagnant heat dome, families still struggled to recover from hurricanes Helene and Milton, and communities reeled from catastrophic flash flooding in Texas. Yet in the face of this mounting climate crisis, the government has launched an unprecedented assault on the environmental protections that keep Americans safe.

This week, the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump Administration moved to repeal the 16-year-old scientific finding that greenhouse gas pollution and emissions from power plants, the oil, gas and coal industries, and vehicle emissions endanger public health and welfare. Without this endangerment finding, the EPA will be forced to abandon its responsibility to set limits on the pollution that’s driving more frequent and severe heat waves, floods and storms. 

The EPA has one job: to protect the people and places we love — our families, our communities, our children’s future. It defies logic and common sense to remove the foundational pillars of our pollution rules precisely when climate impacts are accelerating and we need protections and proactive solutions the most. Simultaneously, the Administration is also recklessly slashing funding and staffing at NOAA, the agency responsible for helping us prepare for disasters, and FEMA, the agency responsible for helping us recover from disasters.

The administration is gaslighting Americans by telling us that climate disruption isn’t a threat when we can see with our own eyes the parade of horribles of repeating record-breaking climate disasters. 2024 was the hottest year on record by a wide margin, flash flood warnings in 2025 have already exceeded previous records and American families — from Texas flood victims to Southeast hurricane survivors — are paying the price with their lives, homes and livelihoods. 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on May 11 proposed new carbon pollution standards for coal and gas-fired power plants to protect public health and reduce harmful pollutants.

EPA’s proposed standards are expected to deliver up to $85 billion in climate and public health benefits over the next two decades and avoid up to 617 million metric tons of total carbon dioxide (CO₂) through 2042.

EPA estimates that in 2030 alone, the proposed standards will prevent more than 300,000 asthma attacks; 38,000 school absence days; 1,300 premature deaths; 38,000 school absence days; and 66,000 lost work days.

Dr. Stephen A. Smith, Executive Director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy: “Individuals and communities across the country are doing whatever they can to protect against the immense dangers of climate pollution and are depending on the federal government to do the same. Federal limits on climate pollution from power plants are a critically needed and long overdue protection for public health and the environment. 

“We will be reviewing the proposal and hope that the proposal hits the mark in giving our communities the safeguards they need from deadly fossil pollution.”

EPA will be taking comments on these proposals for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

— SACE