The Freedom From Religion Foundation is strongly opposing a proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule that would strip the agency of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases — a move FFRF calls dangerous, anti-science, and part of the Christian nationalist Project 2025 agenda.

Revoking the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, which rightly recognized greenhouse gases as pollutants that endanger human health and welfare, would be disastrous. It would strip the agency of its authority to confront a crisis that scientists overwhelmingly agree is real, human-caused, and catastrophic for both public health and the environment.

“Instead of protecting Americans, this proposal flouts science in favor of the Christian nationalist agenda,” says FFRF Senior Policy Counsel Ryan Jayne. “Public policy must be grounded in secular principles that promote the well-being of everyone. The EPA must live up to its name by regulating factors that fuel climate change, not by abandoning its core mission.”

FFRF warns that the proposed rule mirrors the anti-science priorities of Project 2025, which seeks to dismantle environmental safeguards and overturn the Inflation Reduction Act. “One of our nation’s founding principles is that public policy should rest on evidence, not religious dogma,” adds Jayne. “This proposal betrays that principle.”

FFRF points out that nonreligious Americans overwhelmingly support climate action. A Pew Research survey found that 90 percent of atheists acknowledge the reality of climate change, more than any other religious group. “The only afterlife that should concern us is leaving our descendants and planet a secure and pleasant future,” notes FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.

FFRF also criticizes the proposed rule’s nonsensical interpretation of the Clean Air Act, which allows regulation of pollutants that “cause or contribute to” air pollution. The proposed rule excludes air pollutants that endanger people “only indirectly.” This interpretation is directly at odds with the plain language of the statute, which includes pollutants that “contribute to” air pollution. Greenhouse gases, FFRF notes, clearly contribute to global warming regardless of how “well mixed” they are in the atmosphere.

In its official comment to the EPA, FFRF highlights the danger of leaning on cherry-picked anecdotes, such as a flawed Department of Energy draft report claiming the Great Barrier Reef was rebounding, instead of peer-reviewed science. “Instead of relying on such unscientific sources, the EPA should listen to the consensus of the climate scientists whom the current administration dismissed from the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) and Science Advisory Board (SAB),” FFRF notes.

FFRF concludes that Americans, religious and nonreligious alike, have a profound stake in strong greenhouse gas regulations and the rule must be rejected.

“Rely on climate scientists rather than on anti-science ideologues,” FFRF emphasizes. “That would produce true consistency, while protecting both the Clean Air Act and the climate it’s meant to safeguard.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters of nontheism. With more than 42,000 members, FFRF advocates for freethinkers’ rights across the globe. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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