CTC Statement On EPA Cuts

By The National Climate Fellows at Change the Chamber, February 6, 2025

As climate issues indiscriminately wreak havoc across all fifty states, the impacts of this decision will be detrimental to all Americans, especially to frontline communities that experience some of the highest rates of pollution and climate damages in the country.

“Change the Chamber vehemently opposes recent actions taken by the Trump Administration to cut critical programs in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, including the dissolution of the EPA Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. The current Administration put 168 permanent staff on administrative leave and over a thousand additional employees on probation. This move follows recent cuts to research funding and pollution abatement programs as part of the Administration’s reversal of recent climate progress. These federal cuts in the name of eliminating DEI–diversity, equity, and inclusion–efforts in the federal government hurt all Americans by slashing programs that safeguard our most vulnerable communities. 

As climate issues indiscriminately wreak havoc across all fifty states, the impacts of this decision will be detrimental to all Americans, especially to frontline communities that experience some of the highest rates of pollution and climate damages in the country. The pollution resulting from these federal cuts will exacerbate health conditions like cancer and cardiovascular disease. Rollbacks on regulations and critical research funding will also increase the spread of disease through our water, air, soil, and wildlife. Farmers will experience extreme soil degradation, resulting in smaller yields that will cause ripple effects throughout the supply chain and contribute to food insecurity. These decisions by the Trump Administration will be destructive to organizations and communities across the country that rely on federal funding, and will force countless organizations to close their doors for good, setting our nation’s fight for climate resilience back by decades.

Change the Chamber urges the Trump Administration to reverse these decisions by reopening the offices recently closed in the EPA, restoring research funding, and bringing back all employees placed on permanent administrative leave as a result of these crass political actions.”

The National Climate Fellows at Change the Chamber

Change The Chamber is a nonpartisan coalition of over 100 student groups, including undergraduates, graduate students and recent graduates.