U.S. Rep Kelly Morrison Joins Health Experts in Condemning Trump Administration’s Efforts to Increase Pollution and Make Americans Sicker

WASHINGTON, DC -U.S. Representative Kelly Morrison, MD (MN-03) joined health experts to condemn the Trump Administration's recent actions rolling back environmental protections and anti-pollution laws, damaging our climate, and making Americans sicker.

Rep. Morrison, a doctor for more than 20 years and a member of the Democratic Doctors Caucus, joined other health care providers to detail how Donald Trump is putting our families in harm's way by rolling back key protections, exposing Americans to harmful pollution that fuels asthma, heat stroke, and other illnesses.

Right now, the Trump Administration is proposing to revoke the Endangerment Finding, the scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, and is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet and endangering public health.

Watch Representative Morrison's remarks HERE.

Read a transcript of Representative Morrison's remarks below:

Good afternoon.

It's so good to be here with all of you - and thank you to Climate Power for bringing us together to highlight this incredibly important issue.

I'm Kelly Morrison - I represent Minnesota's Third District in Congress and I had the privilege of caring for patients as an OB-GYN for more than 20 years.

We are here today because climate change is not a hoax.

Climate change is getting worse - and this administration is undermining all the progress we were just beginning to make.

This administration is enacting policies that increase emissions at a time when we need to urgently decrease them.

And right now, they're working to take away one of our greatest tools to protect against air pollution and fight climate change by repealing the Endangerment Finding.

This would be a disaster for our nation.

The reality is that climate change is making our communities less safe and less healthy.

And we should be doing everything we can to address this threat to public health.

Just this summer, in my home state of Minnesota, people couldn't even be outside because the wildfire smoke was so bad. You couldn't breathe the air.

We experienced among the worst air quality in the entire world - and broke records for the state's longest-ever air quality alert from wildfires.

And that's what happens with climate change. Climate change, fueled by climate pollution, leads to more extreme weather and disasters - like wildfires, which put our health at risk.

Climate pollution isn't just an environmental issue - it's a public health emergency.

And protections against pollution aren't just for the environment - they are essential for our health.

For an administration that is allegedly interested in "Making America Healthy Again," you know what won't make us healthy?

Taking away our right to breathe clean air.

Letting fossil fuel companies dump more toxic pollution into our air that accelerate climate disasters, fuel deadly heat waves, and worsen chronic disease.

Increasing climate pollution - which we know will lead to more asthma attacks… more ER visits… more heat strokes… more deaths.

And I just want to point out two insidious themes of the Trump Administration in this proposal to repeal the Endangerment Finding.

First: This is the Trump Administration pushing out more completely unqualified, unbacked, non-evidenced based junk pseudoscience.

Defying everything we know from science and experts…

Putting out misleading reports that disregard decades of scientific evidence...

They aren't just ignoring the scientists and the physicians and the nurses anymore - they're now completely rewriting the facts to support their agenda.

We have a government that is trying to distort reality and tell us lies.

This is dangerous.

Second: This is the Trump Administration's playbook of prioritizing billionaires and huge corporations at the expense of you and your family.

They are selling off the health and well-being of the American people to the highest bidder.

In this case: it's Big Oil.

It's exactly what they did earlier this summer with the cruelly-named "One Big Beautiful Bill." They looted Medicaid and made the single largest cut to health care in our nation's history to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and huge corporations.

And now, they're at it again.

They're paving the way for giant corporations to dump toxins into our environment with zero regulation… zero oversight… and zero accountability.

And who pays the price?

All of us.

We are facing one of the Trump Administration's most consequential steps so far to take away our ability to act on climate change and protect public health.

I encourage everyone to speak out and get loud about this.

This is about our health.

This is about our right to breathe clean air.

And know that our health experts and scientists stand with you.

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