Comment submitted by Our Children's Trust

RE: Comment for Revision of Tier 4 Criteria Pollutant Standards, Part 1: Amendments to Phase-In Schedule for Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles Proposed Rule (EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-3297) Dear Secretary Zeldin, On behalf of all of our youth clients, including our clients in Venner v. EPA, Lighthiser v. Trump, and Navahine v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation, and in the interest of America’s children and youth, Our Children’s Trust provides these comments on the EPA’s proposed rule: “Revision of Tier 4 Criteria Pollutant Standards, Part 1: Amendments to Phase-In Schedule for Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles.” Under this rule, EPA is proposing to delay the Tier 4 emission standards by two years until model year (MY) 2029, based on EPA’s unsupported conclusion that there is an “overwhelming rejection of Electric Vehicle[s] (EVs) by the American people.”1 EPA states that it is “committed to putting consumer choice first,” but “consumer choice” is found nowhere in EPA’s mission to “protect human health and the environment.”2 The EPA has no statutory authority to prioritize consumer choice to the detriment of human health and the environment. In addition, this proposed rule, and others like it, cause an immediate and predictable shift in producer and consumer behavior, resulting in car manufacturers decreasing the number of new EVs produced and sold, and correspondingly increasing the number of internal combustion engine vehicles manufactured and sold in the United States. These effects lock in increasing GHG emissions that would otherwise be avoided if the Tier 4 standards are implemented as originally designed. The whole point of this proposed rule is to facilitate fossil fuel development and consumption, which violates children’s constitutional rights to religious freedom, health, safety, and bodily integrity and is unjustified by law, science, economic prosperity, energy security, or any other reason. Put simply, why is the government facilitating a delay in imposing stronger emission standards that protect children’s health and safety? In addition to being illegal, this proposed rule would halt and backtrack manufacturers’ ongoing emissions reduction efforts. Delaying the adoption of the Tier 4 standards will worsen 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. This proposal is akin to returning to the days of leaded gasoline, which, like climate pollution, caused countless deaths and adverse health outcomes.3 To protect human health and the environment, EPA must align light-duty and medium-duty vehicle emission standards to meet the urgency and reality of the climate crisis and the deep emission reductions scientists say are needed to protect the climate system and the constitutional rights of youth. Further, the EPA should not take any actions that deliberately and knowingly impair children’s health and increase their risk of death through the pollution that will result from the delay of Tier 4 standard adoption. 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 are submitting this comment because EPA’s 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). Please see the attached comment. Sincerely, /s/ Julia Olson Co-executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel julia@ourchildrenstrust.org Our Children’s Trust P.O. Box 5181 Eugene, OR 97405