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Green Groups Organizing 'All Out on Earth Day' Protests Against Trump Authoritarianism
"Trump is dismantling critical environmental safeguards, putting lives at risk, and leaving working people to suffer the devastating consequences," said one campaigner.
Apr 14, 2025
A coalition of green groups on Monday promoted plans for nationwide "All Out on Earth Day" rallies "to confront rising authoritarianism and defend our environment, democracy, and future" against the Trump administration's gutting of government agencies and programs tasked with environmental protection and combating the climate emergency.
Organizers of the protests—which are set to take place from April 18-30—are coalescing opposition to President Donald Trump's attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies, which include efforts to rescind or severely curtail regulations aimed at protecting the public from pollution, oil spills, and other environmental and climate harms.
"This Earth Day, we fight for everything: for our communities, our democracy, and the future our children deserve."
The Green New Deal Network, one of the event's organizers, decried Trump's "massive rollbacks" to the EPA and noted that funds "for critical programs have been frozen and federal workers have been unjustly fired" as Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, takes a wrecking ball to government agencies.
"This Earth Day, we fight for everything: for our communities, our democracy, and the future our children deserve," Green New Deal Network national director Kaniela Ing said in a statement.
"Trump, Musk, and their billionaire allies are waging an all-out assault on the agencies that keep our air clean, our water safe, and our families healthy," Ing continued. "They're gutting the programs and projects we fought hard to win—programs that bring down energy costs and create good-paying jobs in towns across America, especially in red states."
"So, we need to make sure the pressure continues and our protests aren't just a flash in the pan," Ing added. "When we stand together—workers, environmentalists, everyday folks—we can not only stop them, but we can build the world we deserve."
All Out on Earth Day participants include Sunrise Movement, Climate Power, Third Act, Popular Democracy, Climate Defenders, the Democratic National Committee Council on Environment and Climate, Unitarian Universalists, NAACP, Dayenu, Evergreen, United to End Polluter Handouts Coalition, Climate Hawks Vote, and the Center of Biological Diversity (CBD).
Last month, CBD sued five Cabinet-level agencies in a bid to ensure that DOGE teams tasked with finding ways to cut costs—including via workforce reductions—fully comply with federal transparency law. This, after DOGE advised the termination of thousands of probationary staffers at the EPA, Department of the Interior, and other agencies.
Although a federal judge last month ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of government workers fired from half a dozen agencies based on the "lie" that their performance warranted termination, the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court subsequently sided with the White House, finding that plaintiffs in the case lacked the legal standing to sue.
Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org and founder of the elder-led Third Act, harkened back to the historic first Earth Day in 1970.
"Fifty-five years ago, a massive turnout on the first Earth Day forced a corrupt Republican administration to pass the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, and create the EPA," he said on Monday, referring to the presidency of Richard Nixon. "Let's do it again!"
Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, highlighted the need for action now, noting that Trump "is giving oil and gas billionaires the green light to wreck our planet and put millions of lives at risk, all so they can pad their bottom line."
"Just three months into the Trump presidency, the damage has already been catastrophic," she added. "Trump is dismantling critical environmental safeguards, putting lives at risk, and leaving working people to suffer the devastating consequences. "This Earth Day, we stand united in defiance of their greed and fight for a future that prioritizes people and the planet over profits."
"This Earth Day, we fight for everything: for our communities, our democracy, and the future our children deserve."
The Green New Deal Network, one of the event's organizers, decried Trump's "massive rollbacks" to the EPA and noted that funds "for critical programs have been frozen and federal workers have been unjustly fired" as Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, takes a wrecking ball to government agencies.
"This Earth Day, we fight for everything: for our communities, our democracy, and the future our children deserve," Green New Deal Network national director Kaniela Ing said in a statement.
"Trump, Musk, and their billionaire allies are waging an all-out assault on the agencies that keep our air clean, our water safe, and our families healthy," Ing continued. "They're gutting the programs and projects we fought hard to win—programs that bring down energy costs and create good-paying jobs in towns across America, especially in red states."
"So, we need to make sure the pressure continues and our protests aren't just a flash in the pan," Ing added. "When we stand together—workers, environmentalists, everyday folks—we can not only stop them, but we can build the world we deserve."
All Out on Earth Day participants include Sunrise Movement, Climate Power, Third Act, Popular Democracy, Climate Defenders, the Democratic National Committee Council on Environment and Climate, Unitarian Universalists, NAACP, Dayenu, Evergreen, United to End Polluter Handouts Coalition, Climate Hawks Vote, and the Center of Biological Diversity (CBD).
Last month, CBD sued five Cabinet-level agencies in a bid to ensure that DOGE teams tasked with finding ways to cut costs—including via workforce reductions—fully comply with federal transparency law. This, after DOGE advised the termination of thousands of probationary staffers at the EPA, Department of the Interior, and other agencies.
Although a federal judge last month ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of government workers fired from half a dozen agencies based on the "lie" that their performance warranted termination, the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court subsequently sided with the White House, finding that plaintiffs in the case lacked the legal standing to sue.
Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org and founder of the elder-led Third Act, harkened back to the historic first Earth Day in 1970.
"Fifty-five years ago, a massive turnout on the first Earth Day forced a corrupt Republican administration to pass the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, and create the EPA," he said on Monday, referring to the presidency of Richard Nixon. "Let's do it again!"
Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, highlighted the need for action now, noting that Trump "is giving oil and gas billionaires the green light to wreck our planet and put millions of lives at risk, all so they can pad their bottom line."
"Just three months into the Trump presidency, the damage has already been catastrophic," she added. "Trump is dismantling critical environmental safeguards, putting lives at risk, and leaving working people to suffer the devastating consequences. "This Earth Day, we stand united in defiance of their greed and fight for a future that prioritizes people and the planet over profits."
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Trump Wants to End Head Start While Boosting Military Spending to Record $1 Trillion
"Young learners and families around the country rely on Head Start and eliminating funding for this essential program would be devastating to local communities," warned one critic.
Apr 14, 2025
Critics on Monday decried the Trump administration's consideration of a budget proposal that would completely eliminate funding for the early childhood education program Head Start—which serves over 800,000 low-income U.S. families—while increasing military spending to an unprecedented $1 trillion.
USA Todayreported Friday that an unnamed Trump administration official—who is not authorized to publicly discuss the plan—said the White House's fiscal year 2026 spending proposal contains no funding for Head Start and explicitly lists the program among those slated for elimination.
Head Start is a core component of the so-called War on Poverty launched during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson 61 years ago. More than 40 million children have been served by the program, which provides free meals, healthcare, and developmental assessments and helps youth develop critical skills for success in the classroom and beyond.
The elimination of Head Start is included in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led plan for a far-right overhaul of the federal government whose objectives closely track Trump's policies, despite the president's efforts during his 2024 campaign to distance himself from the deeply unpopular proposal.
Here it is: Republicans told us in Project 2025 that they’d eliminate Head Start. Now, they’re doing it. Their concern for high costs, for kids, for parents — all lies. www.usatoday.com/story/news/e...
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— Katherine Clark ( @whipkclark.bsky.social) April 12, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Yasmina Vinci, executive director of the National Head Start Association, warned that defunding the program would be "catastrophic."
President Donald Trump's evisceration of federal agencies—spearheaded by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE—has already kneecapped Head Start via a Supreme Court-affirmed freeze on grants, the primary source of the program's funding. The Administration for Children and Families, which runs Head Start, is also reeling from the Trump administration's closure of half of its regional offices, including in Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle.
Meanwhile, Trump supports a proposed $1 trillion budget for the Pentagon, up from $892 billion for the current fiscal year. The billionaire president and Republicans in Congress are also seeking $4.5 trillion in tax breaks that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans. This, as GOP lawmakers propose slashing $2 trillion in spending for Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and other safety net programs.
"While families feel the crunch with a worsening childcare crisis and much higher daily costs thanks to Trump's tariffs, President Trump wants to eliminate Head Start and kick hundreds of thousands of kids out of the classroom, fire teachers, and make childcare and early learning more expensive and less safe," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Monday.
Murray continued:
This administration believes we cannot afford to help families get preschool or help kids get basic health services, but we can afford trillions of dollars more in tax breaks for billionaires. It's offensive and just plain wrong, and let me be clear: Democrats won't let a proposal like this go anywhere in Congress.
But that doesn't mean Head Start and so many other programs aren't under grave threat—because Trump has proven he'll ignore our laws and do whatever he can to break these programs on his own. Trump has already tried illegally blocking funding for Head Start earlier this year, and programs across the country continued having problems accessing their funding long after his administration promised everything was fine. He has already fired the very people who keep Head Start running with no plan in place to ensure hundreds of thousands of families will keep getting the care they count on, so it's on every one of us to keep speaking out and opposing this administration's anti-family, pro-billionaire agenda.
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director of the Seattle-based advocacy group MomsRising, called the proposed elimination of Head Start "an abhorrent attack on children and families, ripping opportunities from our country's youngest, damaging businesses, and hurting our economy."
"Congress must hold the line and protect Head Start," she added.
The First Five Years Fund—which "works to protect, prioritize, and build support for early learning and childcare programs at the federal level"—said Monday on social media that "young learners and families around the country rely on Head Start and eliminating funding for this essential program would be devastating to local communities."
Hailey Gibbs, associate director of the Center for American Progress Early Childhood division, on Monday called Head Start "an incredible program" that "fosters kids' early development, supports family well-being, and boosts local economies."
"The Trump administration and its apologists in Congress want to gut it," Gibbs added. "We must safeguard Head Start and the thousands of families it serves."
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Any Trump EPA Attempt to Stop Regulating Climate Pollution Won’t Stand up to the Facts
The science on climate change is so indisputably well-established, that it’s hard to see how any court would uphold a challenge to it.
Apr 13, 2025
In a blitz of destructive actions announced by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin last month, he specifically called for a reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding. A formal proposal for reconsideration of the finding (and all the agency regulations and actions that depend on it) is expected this month.
The science underpinning the Endangerment Finding is airtight, but that won’t stop the Trump administration from setting up a rigged process to try to undo it and give a blank check to polluters. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) will fight back to defend climate science and protect public health safeguards.
In an earlier post, I laid out some of the history and context for the 2009 science-backed Endangerment Finding and the Cause or Contribute Finding. These findings followed from the landmark 2007 Mass v. EPA Supreme Court ruling which held that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are unambiguously air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. Together, these establish the clear basis for EPA’s authority and responsibility to set pollutions limits for heat-trapping emissions from vehicles, power plants, and other sources of these pollutants, under the Clean Air Act.
There is nothing mysterious about the heat-trapping attributes of greenhouse gases, nor their impact on public health. It’s called science.
Attacks on the Endangerment Finding and EPA’s Clean Air Act authority from industry interests are nothing new. Importantly, courts have repeatedly upheld both, including in a resounding 2012 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals–D.C. Circuit in Citizens for Responsible Regulation v. EPA. But those who have long sought to overturn or weaken regulations to limit heat-trapping emissions now have Administrator Zeldin in their corner. And he has shown himself to be an unbridled purveyor of disinformation and proponent of harmful attacks on bedrock public health protections, as my colleague Julie McNamara highlights.
The details of what will be included in the reconsideration proposal are unclear at this point. But we do know some of the trumped-up lines of attack the Zeldin EPA could advance to try to invalidate these findings because many of these tired arguments are outlined in EPA’s reconsideration announcement.
Here are the facts:
Fact No. 1: The Science Backing the Endangerment Finding Is Beyond Dispute
Every major scientific society endorses the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change driven by GHG emissions. The Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) and the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report are two major recent authoritative summaries of peer-reviewed climate science, which show that the science on climate change has only become more dire and compelling since 2009.
The impacts of climate change on human health are also starkly clear and backed by overwhelming evidence. Here’s the main finding from the NCA5 chapter on public health, for instance:
Climate change is harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, higher incidences of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water security. These impacts worsen social inequities. Emissions reductions, effective adaptation measures, and climate-resilient health systems can protect human health and improve health equity.
As just one example, climate change is contributing to worsening extreme heat, which exerts a punishing toll on people’s health, including that of outdoor workers. Heat is already the leading cause of extreme weather-related deaths in the United States, and studies show that heat-related mortality is on the rise.
Looking around the nation, with communities reeling from extreme heatwaves, intensified hurricanes, catastrophic wildfires, and record flooding, climate impacts are the lived reality of all too many people. To deny that or obfuscate about the underlying causes is not only disingenuous, but actively harmful and outright cruel.
Fact No. 2: The Law Requires an Independent Scientific Determination of Endangerment, Unhindered by Cost Considerations
A Finding of Endangerment under the Clean Air Act is specifically focused on a threshold scientific determination of whether the pollutant under consideration harms public health or welfare. Costs to industry of meeting any subsequent regulations are not relevant per the statute.
The original Endangerment Finding was reached in the context of the vehicle emissions, per section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, partially excerpted below:
The administrator shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) in accordance with the provisions of this section, standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.
In its 2012 decision, the D.C. Circuit was also clear is noting that “By employing the verb ‘shall,’ Congress vested a non-discretionary duty in EPA.” That duty is not circumscribed by cost considerations.
Of course, the impacts of climate change are themselves incredibly costly and those costs are mounting as heat-trapping emissions rise. Unsurprisingly, the social cost of greenhouse gases, a science-based estimate of those costs, is another metric that the Trump EPA is seeking to undermine in yet another blatant attempt to put a thumb on the scale in favor of polluting industries.
Fact No. 3: EPA Used Well-Established Methodologies in Its Assessment of Six GHGs
As noted in the 2009 Endangerment Finding, the EPA defined the pollutant contributing to climate change as “the aggregate group of the well-mixed greenhouse gases” with similar attributes. The attributes include that they are sufficiently long-lived, directly emitted, contribute to climate warming, and are a focus of science and policy.
The EPA used a very well-established scientific methodology to combine emissions of GHGs on the basis of their heat-trapping potential, measured in carbon-dioxide equivalents. In the case of passenger cars, light- and heavy-duty trucks, buses, and motorcycles—the transportation sources EPA considered for the original Endangerment Finding—they emitted four key greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons.
False, glib claims in the reconsideration announcement baselessly accuse the 2009 Endangerment Finding of making “creative leaps” and “mysterious” choices. There is nothing mysterious about the heat-trapping attributes of greenhouse gases, nor their impact on public health. It’s called science. Once again, relying on the mountain of evidence in the peer-reviewed scientific literature would make that readily apparent.
Fact No. 4: EPA Has the Responsibility and Authority to Regulate Major Sources of GHGs
The Cause or Contribute Finding—which specifically established that greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles contribute to the pollution that harms public health—may also come under attack. This finding has been extended to other major sources of GHGs, including power plants and oil and gas operations. However, the Trump administration could attempt to use accounting tricks to avoid regulating emissions—as it has tried before.
In its first term, the administration attempted multiple underhanded maneuvers along these lines, including in the context of methane and volatile organic compound regulations in the oil and gas sector. For these regulations, the administration split up segments of the source category, designated them as separate source categories, used that manipulation to claim inability to regulate certain segments, and asserted that methane emissions from the remaining segments were too small and regulating them would not provide additional benefits, so those too could not be regulated. Separately, in the final days of the administration, EPA released an absurd framework attempting to set thresholds for determining “significance,” trialed in the context of power plants.
This irrational approach could be used to artificially segment components of power plants or the power system, for example, and then claim no regulations are required. This kind of rigged math wouldn’t fool a kindergarten child, but there’s no telling where this administration might go in its desperate attempt to undo or weaken regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.
Zeldin’s Relentless Subversion of EPA’s Mission
Under Administrator Zeldin, EPA’s mission to protect public health and the environment has been completely subverted. His shocking rhetoric lays bare how far he will go to protect polluters at the expense of the public. Here he is, for instance, crowing about going after 31+ EPA regulations and guidance, as well as the enforcement of pollution standards meant to protect all of us:
Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion…
EPA even set up an email address for polluters to send an email to get a presidential exemption from complying with regulations on toxic pollution, such as mercury emissions, regulated under the Clean Air Act!
Zeldin is fervently committed to dismantling public health protections and rolling back enforcement of existing laws passed by Congress. Going after the Endangerment Finding is an integral part of this all-out assault because, in the Trump administration’s harmful calculation, revoking the finding is a potential means to rolling back all the regulations that depend on it.
Ironically, some utilities and oil and gas companies have spoken out in favor of keeping the finding intact, as they fear a greater risk of climate damages lawsuits in the absence of EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Of course, this just exposes that they know their products are causing damage. What they seek is the weakest possible exercise of EPA authority so they can continue to reap profits while evading accountability for those harms.
We Can Fight Back With Science
But none of this is a foregone conclusion. The legal and scientific basis for the Endangerment Finding is incredibly strong. The false claims Zeldin and other opponents have trotted out are full of bombast but weak on substance.
The science on climate change is so indisputably well-established, that it’s hard to see how any court would uphold a challenge to it. That’s not to say Zeldin won’t try to find a cabal of fringe “scientists” to try to attack it, but they’re unlikely to succeed on the merits.
Public comments on the proposal to reconsider the Endangerment Finding can help set the record straight on facts. And if the Zeldin EPA ignores them and finalizes a sham finding or revokes the finding with a faulty rationale, that will be challenged in court.
UCS will be closely following the details of EPA’s proposal to reconsider the Endangerment Finding when it is released. And we will let you know how you can add your voice to bolster this crucial science-based finding, and the public health protections that flow from it. So, stay tuned!
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