Viewpoint: Dismantling climate protections endanger us all

Montana Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate

Climate change is real. Here in Montana, we're experiencing it more each year, as snow season lessens, heat events increase, and drought continues. These, along with wildfire smoke, adversely affect human health – increasing heart attacks, preterm births, and the despair experienced by our youth and farmers, among many health effects.

Yet the current federal administration is pushing ahead with its dangerous plan to make climate denial the official policy of the U.S. government. The current Endangerment Finding is a statement of fact: Climate change is dangerous, is caused by fossil fuels and threatens public health.

The 2009 Endangerment Finding resulted from a Supreme Court case that held the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Since then, the finding has provided the legal foundation for federal climate action.

The Endangerment Finding was just repealed on Thursday, February 12, and by rescinding it, the administration and EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, are delivering a massive giveaway to polluters while the American people will get more climate chaos and resulting increased health care costs. This amounts to the biggest threat to action on climate change that has happened in our country.

Climate change and its impacts, such as extreme weather and health harms, threaten the lives of Montanans. Under this Polluters First Agenda currently operating at the EPA, fossil fuel companies can pollute at will, leaving us with more frequent extreme weather, higher risks of wildfires, more disease-carrying insects, less access to safe drinking water, and other health catastrophes.

This fight isn't over: The Clean Air Act demands the EPA protect our health and the environment. In doing polluters’ bidding instead, Trump and Zeldin are abandoning that mission.

Montanans don't want dirtier air, sicker kids, and more extreme weather, and we will be holding the administration accountable.

Montana Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate; Lori Byron MD, Pediatrician, Red Lodge; Hillery Daily, ND, Hamilton; Haley Yarborough, media /journalism intern, Missoula