Comment submitted by Our Children's Trust

RE: Comment for Begin Actual Construction in the New Source Review (NSR) Preconstruction Permitting Program Proposed Rule (EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0618) Dear Secretary Zeldin, On behalf of all of our youth clients, including our clients in Lighthiser v. Trump and Venner v. EPA, and in the interest of America’s children and youth, Our Children’s Trust provides these comments on the EPA’s “Begin Actual Construction in the New Source Review (NSR) Preconstruction Permitting Program” proposed rule which is unjustified by law, science, economic prosperity, energy security, or any other reason. In addition to being illegal, this proposed rule would weaken safeguards facilitating the unleashing of fossil fuels by allowing construction of non-emitting components of a major stationary source, like gas power plants and data centers, before obtaining New Source Review air permits, worsening the adverse health effects of fossil fuel pollution our clients are currently suffering directly through their inhalation and exposure to the localized pollution and the heat-trapping greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, resulting in further dangerous disruptions of the climate system on which these youths’ health and lives depend. As the Nation’s only law firm dedicated to representing children and youth whose constitutional rights are being infringed by government conduct that causes and contributes to climate change, we write to advise you that your proposed rulemaking must be consistent with protecting the rights to life, personal security, family autonomy, bodily integrity, the practice and transmission of cultural and religious traditions, children’s equal protection of the law, and free exercise of religion. U.S. Const. amend. V, XIV, § 1, I; 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1 (Religious Freedom Restoration Act). Here, you are engaged in unconstitutional rulemaking to implement the President’s Executive Orders 14154, 14156, and 14261, in violation of U.S. Const. amend. V, XIV, § 1, I; 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1 (Religious Freedom Restoration Act). Your multiplicity of actions pursuant to those Executive Orders, including this rulemaking effort to accelerate the construction of power plants and data centers without approved air permits, also violate the separation of powers, by exceeding the authority the EPA has been delegated by Congress and by engaging in conduct that has a significant effect on U.S. public health, welfare and the economy, while lacking any scientific integrity as Congress has mandated. The EPA has no statutory authority to deprive children and youth of their fundamental rights listed above. See the attached comment. Julia Olson Co-executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel julia@ourchildrenstrust.org Our Children’s Trust P.O. Box 5181 Eugene, OR 97405