Last Thursday, the United States Supreme Court made a decision to limit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The decision in West Virginia v. EPA undermines the 50-year effort by the EPA to protect air quality and reduce greenhouse gas pollution from coal and gas-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act. This decision must not stand!

The fossil fuel industry has polluted our air and water, endangered our environment, and jeopardized our children’s future. Coal executives and their political enablers continue to resist transitioning to renewables. They brought this case to the Supreme Court to gut the EPA’s authority to rein in climate-disrupting carbon dioxide pollution from existing fossil fuel-burning power plants. 

This news is devastating for many communities in Virginia already facing the effects of climate change. Families across Virginia are suffering from the toxins of fossil fuel pollution, sea-level rise, extreme heat, and the burden of increasing utility bills and utility shutoffs. This decision does not recognize the urgency of the climate crisis and the increasing human health impacts, particularly on communities of color and vulnerable communities around the world.

As people of faith, we have a moral obligation to cut carbon emissions and other pollutants that harm our health and our communities. Why? Because we are called to empower the voices of people who disproportionately face climate change impacts and to create an equitable and thriving world. Now more than ever we need our local and national leaders to take bold and just action to address climate change. It’s time we #ActOnClimate!