It is truly mind-boggling. The institution founded with the mandate to “protect human health and the environment” is now waging a full on war against the climate – and the American people.
Not content with abolishing at least 31 life-saving regulations, EPA Administrator Zeldin recently set his sights on throwing out the bedrock scientific finding that has been the basis of protective rulemaking since 2009: the Endangerment Finding. He says “I have been told” it “is considered the holy grail of the climate change religion.”
So much is revealed in this statement. That he has been told indicates both his lack of scientific knowledge, and his willingness to realize the strategy of others who have vested interests (ie, the fossil fuel industry and the politicians in its pocket). That he continues to call it “the climate change religion” exposes his misunderstanding of religion, and puts on display the deliberately obtuse climate denialism that animates his actions at the EPA.
But mostly, that he seeks to overturn the very real, very scientific, and very evident finding reveals the mission at the heart of this iteration of the EPA: to undo the role of government to protect people in the face of rapacious greed – and to plunge us back into preregulatory days when our air was filthier, our water was dirtier, our land was more riddled with dangerous toxins. In order to appease those who want us to extract and burn more fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas.
A new mission for the EPA: Propping up the fossil fuel industry
The actual website of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently advertises that it is “powering the great American comeback.” Administrator Zeldin has said repeatedly that he is more interested in “unleashing” American energy and revitalizing the auto industry than in protecting “health and environment.”
Read: the EPA is now devoted more to ensuring the profitability of the fossil fuel industry than to tackling the pesky environmental concerns of old: pollution and contamination of our air, water, and land; rapidly accelerating weather disasters; preventable illnesses and premature deaths; and increasing dangers to frontline communities – largely Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income – that already suffer disproportionate exposure to toxic air and water contaminants.
Since President Trump took office, and Lee Zeldin was confirmed as Administrator of the EPA, the agency has raced ahead at full speed in the effort to achieve “the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen.” The agency itself has a page devoted to its actions to repeal regulations that helped clean up our air and water and protect public health and safety. The ones that, for example, limit mercury and air toxins from coal-fired power plants, regulate wastewater, protect us from haze, slow down coal ash programs, curb tailpipe emissions… and so much more.
Yes, the EPA is bragging about slashing rules that did things like reduce asthma attacks, slow the escalation of the climate crisis, tackle environmental racism… you get the picture.
Greenhouse gas emissions are putting us in danger
Despite its esoteric name, the Endangerment Finding is fairly simple. Based on mountains of scientific data, it finds that greenhouse gas emissions trap the sun’s heat inside the atmosphere, raise the temperature of land, air, and water, and cause deadly disruptions to our climate. These findings are nearly universally confirmed by climate scientists and scientific studies. (It turns out the fossil fuel industry itself landed on these findings nearly 50 years ago.)
And so, it finds that these emissions put us in danger.
We are in danger of more frequent and more severe climate disasters (see recent fires, floods, heat waves, and hurricanes); in danger of increased illnesses and medical emergencies; in danger of worsening mental health; in danger of severe and long-lasting damage to our economy, our food supply, our housing stock, and our future.
And from there, the Endangerment Finding enabled the EPA to take commonsense steps to reduce emissions from power plants, cars and trucks, and oil and gas operations. Which, of course, delivered immediate benefits to people across the country.
In 2025, however, we are now fighting with the EPA to keep this landmark finding and those rules, and to do its job of protecting health and environment.
A betrayal to the mission – and climate and people
Needless to say, this complete betrayal of the EPA’s original mission – and of the interests of the American people, our children, and our future – is also a betrayal of Administrator Zeldin’s own Jewish values. He has chosen to align himself with a President who made big promises to the fossil fuel industry during his campaign – and is now delivering on those promises to loosen regulations, undo permitting restrictions, open precious lands and waters.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the EPA’s work is l’dor v’dor, to protect and sustain the American people from generation to generation. Undermining that work — which, as far as we can tell, is Administrator Zeldin’s singular mission so far — is utterly antithetical to any Jewish value oriented towards the protection of life and safety.
Abolishing the Endangerment Finding will, effectively, abandon the public good, leaving us at the mercy of corporations that only value profits and shareholder returns – and will do anything to keep that engine running. It will undo the ability to make rules that safeguard our lives and our future. It will accelerate the climate crisis – and make our world even drier, hotter, and – yes – more dangerous.
In a Midrash from Genesis, God warns Adam and Eve as he gave them Eden to “be mindful then that you do not spoil and destroy My world – for if you spoil it, there is no one after you to repair it.” (Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 7:13).
We have this one world. Why are we willing to sacrifice it to an industry that – knowingly – is spoiling and destroying it?