GreenLatinos Condemns EPA Rescinding of Endangerment Finding, Warns of Severe Consequences for Climate Action and Public Health
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 2/12/2026
MEDIA CONTACT: Edder Díaz Martínez, Communications Director, 602-832-6039, [email protected]
WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a rule rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding, the determination that climate pollution endangers public health and welfare and serves as a cornerstone of federal climate action.
First issued in 2009, the Endangerment Finding reflected decades of scientific evidence showing that climate pollution from fossil fuels drives climate change and causes widespread harm to human health, ecosystems, and communities. It established the federal government’s responsibility to address climate pollution as a public health threat.
Rescinding this finding undermines the scientific and legal foundation that has guided federal action to reduce climate pollution for more than a decade. At a time when climate impacts are accelerating, this decision weakens the government’s ability to respond to a growing public health emergency.
GreenLatinos strongly opposes this rollback. Climate change is already worsening extreme heat, air pollution, flooding, wildfires, and displacement, with Latino communities facing disproportionate exposure due to long-standing environmental and economic inequities. These harms translate into real health consequences, including increased asthma attacks, heat-related illness, lost workdays, and premature deaths.
This action follows a year marked by record-breaking heat, devastating storms, prolonged drought, and deadly wildfires. Climate change is not a distant or abstract threat. It is a present-day crisis, and rolling back protections that recognize climate pollution as a danger to public health puts communities and lives at risk.
Following the announcement, GreenLatinos' leadership issued the following statements:
“The Federal Government rescinding the Endangerment Finding means stripping communities, especially frontline and Latino communities, of one of the strongest legal protections against dangerous air pollution and climate pollution. It comes at a time when communities are already facing extreme heat, worsening air quality, contaminating waterways, rising energy bills, and growing health costs. Instead of moving backward and dismissing science that has been clear and well-established, we should be building on it. Our focus should be on solutions that protect public health, lower costs for families, and move the country forward, not on decisions that make life more expensive and less safe for everyday Americans,” said Mark Magaña, President and CEO of GreenLatinos.
“Rescinding the Endangerment Finding is climate denial in action,” said Meisei Gonzalez, Climate Justice and Clean Air Advocate at GreenLatinos. “After a year of deadly heat, floods, and fires, the EPA is walking away from science and leaving our communities unprotected.”
“The well-being of our communities is tied directly to the well-being of our waterways and oceans. As the climate crisis continues to impact these bodies of water, our communities are the ones who feel the consequences of the EPA’s failings,” said Val Z. Schüll, Ph.D., Water Equity and Ocean Program Director at GreenLatinos. “Rescinding the Endangerment Finding will not only further damage fragile aquatic ecosystems, but continue to perpetuate harm towards Latino and other frontline communities dealing with the brunt of the climate crisis.”
“This horrific, profit-driven attack on the long-settled Endangerment finding and significant clean vehicle progress is a transparent handout to Big Oil billionaires and other fossil fuel-aligned bad actors,” said Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, PhD., Sustainable Communities Policy Advisor at GreenLatinos. “The revised rule is a major blow to US climate and clean transportation progress, and will wreak havoc first and worst on the most vulnerable and pollution-burdened communities across the country, increasing the daily cost of living, poisoning the air we breathe, and harming our long-term health.”
“The Trump regime wanted to sell off our public lands, and now they want to sell out our health,” said Olivia Juarez, GreenLatinos Public Land Program Director. “Rescinding the Endangerment Finding dismisses the science that recognizes climate pollution as a threat to public health. Climate pollution is already drying rivers, fueling catastrophic wildfires, degrading ecosystems, and making nearby communities sick. Rolling back this safeguard puts extractive interests first, leaving our public land and all who depend on it more vulnerable.”
“Latino communities are on the frontlines of climate disasters and air pollution. The science is clear, the insurance companies are reflecting the disaster payouts in their rates, farmers know their yields are changing, and the water shortages continue. Dismantling this safeguard is reckless, dangerous, and morally indefensible,” said Ean Tafoya Vice President of State Programs, of GreenLatinos.
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About GreenLatinos
GreenLatinos (NOTE: GreenLatinos is ONE WORD) is an active comunidad of Latino/a/e leaders, emboldened by the power and wisdom of our culture, united to demand equity and dismantle racism, resourced to win our environmental, conservation, and climate justice battles, and driven to secure our political, economic, cultural, and environmental liberation.
GreenLatinos (NOTA: GreenLatinos es UNA PALABRA) es una comunidad activa de líderes latinos/a/e, envalentonados por el poder y la sabiduría de nuestra cultura, unidos para exigir equidad y desmantelar el racismo, con recursos para ganar nuestra justicia ambiental, batallas de conservación, climáticas e impulsados a asegurar nuestra liberación política, económica, cultural y ambiental.
