GreenLatinos condemns the repeal of both the Carbon Power Plant Rules and the Mercury and Air Toxics standards, putting polluter profits over the health, safety, and economic stability of frontline communities.
WASHINGTON — Earlier this week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under Administrator Lee Zeldin, announced its intent to repeal the Carbon Pollution Standards for power plants and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). Both rules are critical public health and climate safeguards that have already begun reducing dangerous pollution across the country.
Finalized just last year after more than 1 million Americans submitted comments in support, the carbon pollution standards were projected to cut power sector emissions by 75% below 2005 levels by 2035. This is critical to slowing the rate of climate change as power plants are a major source of climate warming pollution. MATS have already cut mercury pollution by 90%, protecting families from neurotoxins that can cause irreversible brain damage to infants and children.
Now, these protections are under attack as part of the Trump administration’s polluter-first agenda, prioritizing industry profits over public health and environmental safety.
Following this action, GreenLatinos Climate Justice and Clean Air Director Irene Burga issued the following statement.
“These reckless rollbacks prioritize polluter profits over our health, our livelihoods, and our future. They will drive up energy bills, force more missed days of work due to illness, exacerbate climate-fueled extreme weather and deepen financial strain for families already struggling to make ends meet. Latino communities—already disproportionately affected by rising energy costs and extreme heat—will once again bear the brunt of this harmful decision.”
These protections were working—cutting toxic pollution from coal and gas plants that fuels asthma, heart disease, and climate disasters. Repealing them, along with the mercury and air toxics rules, is a deliberate choice to let industries pollute freely while frontline and working-class communities pay the price.
GreenLatinos stands with the millions of people who fought for these protections. We won’t stay silent while the EPA trades our clean air and public health for corporate gain.
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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.
