Action Alerts

Tell the EPA to greenlight air quality improvements

What's At Stake

Clean air, zero-emissions vehicles, and clear skies. That’s the future state air quality regulators have been building with key new standards to transition us away from dirty combustion and towards zero-emissions everything. That includes new regulations that set meaningful targets to get us to zero-emissions big rigs, trains, ferries, and cars. These are life-saving regulations from states that can bring big wins for our climate and the air we all breathe.

The only catch? We need the EPA to issue final approvals for these regulations to allow states like yours to adopt them. 

Help us tell EPA that you want to see the agency give the green light to life-saving regulations. 

Read More

Nearly 60 years ago, Congress preserved California’s explicit authority to adopt standards that are more protective than the federal government’s in order to protect California residents from vehicle pollution and to continue to lead in the area vehicle pollution control innovation. The Clean Air Act directs EPA to review California standards and to waive federal preemption if the standards meet minimum requirements. After the EPA grants a waiver for one of these new standards, other states can then adopt them for the health of their own residents.

EPA should quickly sign the waivers for four life-saving transportation standards that can be adopted by states from coast to coast. 

  • Wave Goodbye to Big Rig Pollution
    The Advanced Clean Fleets rule shifts all truck sales to zero emissions by 2036. While medium and heavy-duty trucks are just 10% of the vehicles on U.S. roads, they pump out 25% of the greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, the nation’s most polluting sector. The new standard is a companion rule to California’s first zero emissions trucks rule, which has already been adopted in New York, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Colorado.  
  • The Electric Train Era
    This standard is a first-of-its kind regulation to shift locomotives operating in the state to zero emissions, cleaning up tons of NOx emissions, a main ingredient in smog. 
  • Electrifying Everything on Water too
    California’s big thinking in the race to electrify everything has turned to tugboats, ferries, and commercial fishing boats that often emit heavy doses of diesel pollution in portside communities. The Commercial Harbor Craft rule is estimated to prevent 531 premature deaths in California alone. 
  • 100% Zero-Emissions Car Sales
    California set a goal of 100% zero emissions car sales with the ACC II rule, which requires auto manufacturers to sell an increasing percentage of EVs over time and sets a 35 percent sales requirement in 2026, ramping up to a 100 percent sales target in 2035. The standard is expected to deliver $12 billion in health benefits in California alone over its lifetime by cutting premature deaths, hospitalizations, and lost workdays linked to polluted air. Those health benefits will only multiply with 12 states like New York, Virginia, Washington, and New Mexico lining up to adopt the rule to clean their air. 

In the face of gridlock in Congress, this is an easy win for the EPA and the Biden administration. California has already developed the regulations and states are eager to adopt them on their own — all the EPA needs to do is grant states the green light to proceed. It’s a win-win-win for EPA, states, and our lungs. 

Urge the EPA to permit these regulations to move forward. 

Illustration of freight trucks spewing exhaust and carrying asthma inhalers.
(Hannah Rothstein for Earthjustice)

Delivery to EPA Administrator Michael Regan

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Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

Your action is with us in court.

If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.