Press Release: Leading Health and Medical Organizations Urge EPA to Uphold Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and Protect Public Health

September 22, 2025

Contacts:                                                           
Anthony Nicome, The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, anicome@gmu.edu 
Savannah Martincic, The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, smartincic@ms2ch.org

September 22, 2025 – More than 120 leading health and medical organizations have signed on to a letter co-developed by the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, the Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment, and the American Thoracic Society, urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reject its proposed rescission of the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding.

Physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals across the country warn that this proposal undermines scientific consensus, threatens decades of public health progress, and exposes communities, especially the most vulnerable and underserved, to increasingly severe climate-related health harms.

“The overwhelming scientific consensus tells us that air pollutants, like greenhouse gas emissions, are already harming the health of the American public,” said Jason M. Goldman, MD, MACP, president of the American College of Physicians. “The American College of Physicians strongly supports the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health’s call for the federal government to continue to recognize the harm that greenhouse gas emissions have on human health and continue to work to reduce those gases and mitigate the harm they cause to the health of our patients.”

The proposed rollback ignores the climate impacts clinicians are seeing in their exam rooms, emergency departments, and clinics. These impacts include increased illness and death from extreme heat, worsened asthma from air pollution, expanding infectious diseases, and exacerbated mental health conditions. These health harms are felt by all of us, but disproportionately burden communities of color, low-income populations, outdoor workers, pregnant people, those with chronic illnesses, and children.

“The Administration’s claim that climate change is not a significant threat is contrary to what nurses, doctors, and pharmacists witness every day in our clinical practice,” said Dr. Lisa Patel, Executive Director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health. “Beyond the devastating toll of wildfires, unprecedented extreme heat, and superstorms and floods that decimate entire communities, we are seeing clinics and hospitals themselves damaged or destroyed, and critical supply chains disrupted. That means in times of crisis we cannot provide even the most basic care patients desperately need.” 

“The damaging impact of air pollution caused by greenhouse gases on the health of our children is a concern that pediatric advanced practice nurses confront every day across the country,” National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) president Dr. Felesia Bowen said. “It is unconscionable that the agency charged with protecting Americans from environmental threats would consider rescinding policies based on years of evidence-based practice. NAPNAP strongly opposed the overturning of the agency’s ‘endangerment finding.”

“No matter where they live, children are uniquely vulnerable to hazardous air pollution. Children are not little adults, and their lungs are still developing, putting them at greater risk for harmful impacts to their lifelong health and development,” said American Academy of Pediatrics President Susan J. Kressly, MD, FAAP. “The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to repeal the endangerment finding would jeopardize the progress we’ve made to protect child health and leave children susceptible to chronic illnesses, like asthma. The American Academy of Pediatrics urges the EPA to rescind this harmful proposal and to instead work to ensure all children can breathe clean air.”

Health professionals across disciplines are aligned in their concern about the rollback of the endangerment finding and the escalating health harms of climate change.

“The Trump Administration’s effort to rescind the EPA’s Endangerment Finding is not only dangerous — it’s an attack on science and on the health of the American people. Undoing the Endangerment Finding would remove the federal government’s main tool to combat climate change,” said Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN, Executive Director of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. “Without strong climate action, nurses will continue to see an accelerating climate crisis, which will worsen extreme heat days and emergency visits for heat illness and increase extreme weather events, such as floods and wildfires – increasing threats to our clinics, hospitals, and communities. EPA must put public health first and abandon its effort to undo the Endangerment Finding.”

The public health impacts of climate change are also driving changes in how we prepare our health workforce.

“The NLN is committed to ensuring that our nursing workforce is educated and clinically prepared to address climate-related health issues,” said National League for Nursing President and CEO Dr. Beverly Malone. “We strongly urge the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider and withdraw its proposal to overturn its long-standing ‘endangerment finding’ on greenhouse gases and instead to strengthen policy that protects our patients from the devastating health effects of air pollution.”

The letter calls on the EPA to:

1) Withdraw the proposed rescission of the 2009 Endangerment Finding.

2) Reaffirm the EPA’s obligation to regulate greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act.

3) Strengthen protections against climate-related health threats through ambitious emissions standards. Without these protections, the health and safety of millions, especially our most vulnerable neighbors, hang in the balance.

The effects of climate change are no longer abstract — they are accelerating, visible, and harming our health now. Health professionals are united in calling on the EPA to follow the science, protect the public, and uphold its duty to safeguard clean air and a stable climate for this and future generations.

“The science is compelling — climate change is a clear and present danger for the health of our patients and communities,” said Alison Lee, MD, MS, ATSF, Chair of the American Thoracic Society’s Environmental Health Policy Committee. “Last week’s National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report confirms what the medical community already knows: climate change is harming our patients and, absent urgent action, the harms will escalate. Let us be clear — the medical community is standing together in its opposition to rolling back the EPA GHG Endangerment Finding.”

The full letter and list of signatories can be found here.

About the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health 
The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health brings together America’s top medical societies to inform the public and policymakers about the health harms of climate change and the health benefits of climate solutions. Its members represent over 700,000 clinical practitioners.