Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, released a statement following EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s announcement repealing the agency’s 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding. This action marks a formal denial by the EPA that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare, diverging from previous scientific findings and Supreme Court decisions.
Schumer and Whitehouse criticized the move, stating: “The Trump EPA has fully abandoned its duty to protect the American people from greenhouse gas pollution and climate change. This shameful abdication—an economic, moral, and political failure—will harm Americans’ health, homes, and economic well-being. It ignores scientific fact and common-sense observations to serve big political donors.”
They added: “This sham decision initially relied on a now thoroughly disgraced and abandoned ‘report’ by known climate deniers. Zeldin stuck to this charade anyway, undaunted by half a century of actual evidence, showing the fix was in from the beginning.”
Addressing broader impacts, they said: “Trump’s fossil fuel corruption defies the will of the American people and undermines U.S. economic competitiveness at a moment when climate costs are already hitting families hard. The cascading failures have begun: climate change is disrupting weather and destabilizing insurance markets, and it threatens to upend mortgage markets, crash home values, and trash the entire economy. As climate change drives up insurance premiums, grocery prices, energy costs, and health care spending, American families will be left holding the bill.”
They further commented: “Ironically, stripping away federal preemption leaves these fossil fuel companies more vulnerable to litigation for the harms their products cause. States, tribes, and local governments should take up the mantle and hold Big Oil accountable for the decades of devastation it has inflicted on the American people.”
Previously, Schumer and Whitehouse led Senate Democrats in urging withdrawal of what they called a legally deficient proposal. They described it as a “dereliction of duty” and a “blatant failure to protect the American people.” Whitehouse also highlighted legal issues with EPA’s approach: “political rhetoric masquerading as legal and scientific reasoning” that “serves no purpose beyond regulatory corporate welfare to President Trump’s fossil fuel industry donors, its only beneficiaries.” He noted that EPA’s rollback relied on questionable interpretations of environmental law while ignoring scientific consensus about climate risks.
According to information from the official website, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is based in the Senate Dirksen Office Building where it supports hearings and operations. The committee oversees federal programs concerning environmental quality as well as natural resources infrastructure in an effort to balance conservation with national needs (source). It handles legislation affecting environmental policy across the country (source), influencing federal regulation related to wildlife protection as well as infrastructure maintenance (source). The committee also works through subcommittees focused on areas such as clean air standards (source).
None of these concerns raised by Senators were addressed in EPA’s final ruling.
