Earlier this month, I testified against one of the most dangerous proposals I’ve seen in my decades of climate work: the repeal of the endangerment finding.
To be honest, I was emotional. I had spent hours listening to doctors, lawyers, scientists and students tell their stories about how climate change is decimating their communities. A student questioned whether she even had a future. A woman explained how rising pollution is worsening her cancer.
These weren’t abstract policy arguments; they were pleas for survival.
You would think the Environmental Protection Agency was sworn to protect the environment. But under the current administration, that mission is being systematically and shamelessly gutted.
I am a climate activist who has worked on environmental initiatives in the U.S. and around the world since I was 12. Now, decades into my career, and I can confidently say that I have never seen a political climate so hostile to our future.
Earlier this year, the EPA announced 31 rollbacks to major environmental protections. And they did so proudly. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal framing this deregulation spree as a win for Americans.
In reality, it was a sellout to corporate polluters. In the press release, the agency laid out its plans: more particulate matter and mercury in our air, fewer safeguards for clean water and an all-out assault on environmental justice.
And now, that corruption reaches even deeper as the administration attempts to roll back the endangerment finding, which is a cornerstone of modern climate policy. It’s the scientific and legal determination by the EPA that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger public health and welfare.
That finding, grounded in mountains of peer-reviewed research and upheld by the courts, forms the legal basis for the EPA to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act.
Repealing it would be catastrophic. It would not change the reality of the climate crisis, but it would gut our ability to respond to it.
The public comment period for this proposal is open through Sept. 22, but I had a chance to testify directly to the EPA.
In my testimony, I didn’t waste time trying to prove that climate change is real. Zeldin knows that it is. He and I are both from Long Island. In fact, he was my congressman.
I remember Hurricane Sandy decimating our community. The storm cost over $60 billion. With climate attribution science, we know that the storm was supercharged from climate change, costing an extra $8 billion.
These costs are mounting. And disasters like Sandy are no longer outliers — they’re the new normal.
I’ve met with Zeldin’s congressional office before. In fact, I successfully advocated for his support of the Great American Outdoors Act, which invested billions into our national parks. That bipartisan effort showed what was possible when public lands and public health were prioritized.
But today, those parks are in peril. As I testified, I pointed out that the Grand Canyon was, quite literally, just on fire.
The National Parks that we love so much are under so great a threat that they are losing the iconic landscapes that give them their names. Glacier National Park might not have glaciers anymore. Saguaro National Park is seeing its namesake cacti collapse because the weather is too hot for even these desert-adapted species.
Meanwhile, we’re seeing wildfires costing billions of dollars in California, flooding disasters in Florida and new climate damages emerge across this country.
This proposal isn’t a good-faith policy review. It’s not a reevaluation based on new evidence. It is an ideologically driven attempt to kneecap environmental protections at the behest of powerful interests that profit from pollution.
And there is no public demand for this action. In research I have coauthored with Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communication, it is clear that Democrats, Republicans and independents alike overwhelmingly and consistently support stronger climate action.
Cities, states, businesses and communities are already investing in clean energy and resilience. The federal government should be leading that charge, not sabotaging it.
I testified against the corrupt political reality that brought us to this moment. It’s no secret that this administration has oil on its hands, and as people die from worsening climate disasters, we’re seeing that they don’t mind blood either.
This proposal sends a dangerous signal to polluters: that science is negotiable, and public health is expendable.
We are already living in a climate-changed world. If we repeal the endangerment finding, the consequences will grow more dire in both human suffering and economic cost.
This essential legal protection needs to remain in place. The EPA must uphold its duty, and at the very minimum, protect the environment.
Saad Amer is a climate activist with a focus on environmental justice. He is the founder of the sustainability consultancy, Justice Environment and is a consultant to the United Nations.
