Summer officially began just a few short days ago, but for many of us, summer weather came early this year.

According to three independent global temperature analyses from NASA, NOAA and Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service, last month was as hot or hotter than any May since record-keeping began 140 years ago. 

And that’s not all - America's Southwest is enduring its second-worst long-lasting drought in 1,200 years since 2000, and experts at NOAA predict another hurricane season this year most likely above normal.

Against this threatening backdrop, the Trump administration’s all-out assault on sensible climate action is both outrageous and dangerous.

Please donate to our limited-time $2-for-$1 match to triple your impact and protect our hard-fought climate victories.

Monthly gifts unlock a bigger $3-for-$1 match for a full year.

For those of us who respect science and support strong climate action, alarming reports on climate impacts are becoming disturbingly routine.

Even more disturbing is the callous disregard – even contempt – for science we’ve seen from the Trump administration.

Since 2017, the Trump administration has tried to rollback, weaken or delay about 100 health and pollution standards that protect our environment including:
 

• Clean Cars: In a move our researchers estimate will lead to up to 18,500 premature deaths, 250,000 asthma attacks, and 350,000 respiratory ailments by 2050 and cost Americans an addition $244 billion at the pump over the next 20 years, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler finalized his rollback of the wildly successful Clean Car standards on March 31. EDF, along with a broad coalition of states, including California, Michigan, and Colorado, businesses, and other health and environmental organizations is now challenging this damaging action in court.
• Mercury and Air Toxics: On the books for nearly a decade, these life-saving standards have dramatically reduced toxic pollutants like mercury, arsenic, and lead from America’s coal-fired power plants - saving an estimated 11,000 lives and preventing 4,700 heart attacks and thousands of asthma attacks every single year. On April 16, just days after the US COVID-19 death toll exceeded 20,000 lives lost, and despite new research out of Harvard University showing the possible link between air pollution and higher death rates from COVID-19, Wheeler also finalized his rollback of a key legal determination underpinning these vital safeguards. EDF and a broad coalition of health, environmental, and civil rights organizations have filed a legal challenge to this harmful rollback – and we are simultaneously working to defeat a lawsuit brought by the coal industry to do away with the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards altogether.
• Clean Power Plan: This landmark plan created our nation’s first-ever limits on climate pollution from existing power plants and was projected to save up to 4,500 lives every year. Last year, the Trump administration scrapped this vital protection and put in place a “replacement” that will achieve no meaningful reductions in climate pollution and is projected to increase health-harming pollution at nearly one in five of the nation’s coal-fired power plants – including many power plants in low-income communities and communities of color. We’ve been fighting this Unlimited Pollution Plan in court with a broad coalition of states and cities, health and environmental organizations, power companies, and clean energy associations, and recently filed our main brief. Briefing will be completed this August.
• Cross-State Air Pollution: Under the Good Neighbor provisions of the Clean Air Act, states are responsible for the pollution generated in their state – even if it blows across state borders into another state. EDF joined a lawsuit filed by New York, New Jersey, and the city of New York alleging that EPA failed to protect millions of New Yorkers from smog-forming pollution when they denied New York’s 2018 petition for help. We’re also party to and awaiting the court’s ruling in a similar case filed by Delaware and my own home state of Maryland.

Please donate now to our Legal Defense Fund and help us stand up to this reckless assault.

It may surprise you to learn there’s a silver lining to this storm cloud: Thanks to their disregard for the rule of law and our legal team’s diligent research and argument preparation, this administration has not completed, and successfully defended in court, rollbacks of a single one of EDF’s priorities to protect climate and air pollution limits on America's largest polluting sectors: transportation, oil & gas, and fossil fuel power plants, together responsible for the majority of warming pollution and tens of thousands of premature deaths every year.

We’ve set a goal of raising $500,000 to keep up the fight this summer, and to stay on track, we need to hit $250,000 by July 4.

1,837 supporters have already taken us more than halfway to that milestone, contributing over $171,000 with individual gifts ranging from $5 to $5,000.

Please join them and become #1,838 to triple your power to defend climate action this summer.

Thank you for powering this fight,
Emily Stevenson
Manager, Online Membership

P.S. Despite our successes in court thus far, the sheer volume of attacks launched under this administration puts a continual strain on our legal team’s resources. Without your support to sustain us, we would be forced to take on fewer battles and hamstrung in our ability to mount the strongest possible defense of clean air and a safer climate.

Now is the best time to fight back because for a limited time, our $2-for-$1 matching gift offer means your gift to EDF’s Legal Defense Fund will have triple the impact.