Sierra Club Texas Responds: Trump Admin. To Repeal Major Health and Climate Protections

AUSTIN, Texas - This Thursday, the Trump Administration is expected to finalize three decisions that will significantly increase climate-warming and health-harming pollution across America, especially in the state of Texas. As it continues to decimate the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to protect our health, Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin will eliminate the 2009 "Endangerment Finding" that provides a fundamental scientific conclusion that greenhouse gases - like carbon dioxide from coal plants and methane from gas plants - endanger human lives. In the same move, EPA will obliterate its own vehicle emission standards and also roll back a rule that would have reduced mercury and air toxics emissions from power plants. And, last Friday, EPA gave coal plants, including two in Texas, three extra years to reduce heavy metal water pollution.

In response, Sierra Club advocates in Texas issued the following statements.

"Pollution from fossil fuels kills thousands of Americans every year, increases our electricity prices, and makes our nation less secure," said Emma Pabst, campaign manager for the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign."But the Trump Administration's wealthy friends who own coal, gas, and data centers don't want you to think about the deaths and sickness and high bills. They want you to look away. These shameful decisions by Trump and his EPA disregard millions of Texans struggling to raise healthy families and pay for insurance, electricity, and groceries. It's past time for the Trump EPA to put people before polluters."

"Today Trump and Zeldin deliver dirtier air, more extreme weather, and harms to our health all across Texas," said Cyrus Reed, Legislative and Conservation Director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club."A majorityof Americans agree that climate change worsens extreme weather, and even oil executives admitthat burning fossil fuels causes climate change. From hurricanes in the Gulf, to devastating floods in Central Texas, to drought and fires in West Texas, to a polar vortex that almost shut down our entire grid - this dangerous federal decision is a slap in the face to millions of Texans, especially the Texans who lost loved ones."

Endangerment Finding Background

• By eliminating the Endangerment Finding, the Trump Administration is preparing to finalize its repeal of the Greenhouse Gas Standard for power plants. This will allow Texas plants to release 74 million tons more carbon, a 567% increase, representing 14% of the total carbon increase for the entire country.
• The 16-year-old finding was based on overwhelming scientific evidence that carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases endanger our health, our economy, and our future by driving global climate change.
• It has been upheld unanimously in federal court. Further, the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 in Massachusetts v. EPAthat the Clean Air Act does cover greenhouse gas pollution.
• The finding gives EPA the statutory authority and obligation to regulate emissions of climate-warming gases from vehicles-the largest source of climate pollution in the United States-and it laid the ground for control of greenhouse gas emissions from other major sources like power plants.
• It was adopted following a rigorous rulemaking process considering thousands of public comments and a massive record of scientific research, which has only grown in the intervening years.

Mercury and Air Toxics Background

• According to a recent Sierra Club analysis, rolling back the stronger MATS rule allows coal plants in Texas to release more of the following pollutants into our air, water, and soil:
  • 327 lbs more mercury, an 89% increase. This represents 38% of the total mercury increase for the entire country due to the MATS repeal.
  • 128 tons more particulate matter, a 33% increase.
• Texas coal plants release more mercurythan any other state. Trump's decision will result in more Texans ingesting mercury from breathing in polluted air, consuming contaminated fish from lakes near power plants, eating food grown in mercury-heavy soil, or swimming and recreating in waterways polluted with mercury.
• Mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin that is especially harmful to children and pregnant mothers and can cause developmental delays, seizures, blindness, and other significant symptoms.
• In May 2025, the Trump administration exempted 68 power plants-including six in Texas-from MATS after soliciting exemption requests from big polluters over email. The Sierra Club suedthe administration for these unlawful exemptions.
• The 2024 rule update, which Trump's EPA has just rolled back, required lignite-burning coal plants to follow the same mercury standards as other coal plants for the first time. Texas and North Dakota are the two main states that still burn lignite, a soft, brown rock that is even dirtier than black coal.

Coal Ash Background

• The Trump EPA on Friday extended key deadlines for the Coal Combustion Residuals rule, which is meant to reduce groundwater pollution from the toxic byproduct of burning coal. Wealthy polluters now get several more years to clean up their act.
• This impacts ash landfills that have been closed at retired facilities.
• Owners now have until Feb. 10, 2031, to comply with the requirements and have until February 2032 to close the coal ash units officially, almost three years after the initial deadline of May 2029.
  

Vehicle Standards Background

• Texas is second only to California on cars on the road, and we are the top trucking state, so rolling back the vehicle emissions standards directly impacts public health, particularly for communities living near interstates and highways.
• The transportation sector accounts for 28 percentof greenhouse gas emissions-more than any other sector in the US. The clean vehicle standards continue EPA's decades-long effort under the Clean Air Act to set standards that successfully reduce vehicle pollution, improve public health, and mitigate harm from climate change.
• For this latest round of final standards, the EPA engaged in a years-long, multi-stakeholder, comprehensive rulemaking process that engaged industry and the public alike and would collectively avoid over 8 billion tons of carbon emissions.
• Over a four-day public hearing in August 2025, over 97 percent of testifiers opposed the Trump administration's proposal, with hundreds of testifiers detailinghow increased vehicle pollution would personally harm their families. Children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to the toxic pollutants that gas-powered vehicles emit.

About the Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is America's largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit https://www.sierraclub.org.