[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 44 Introduced in House (IH)]
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119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 44
Recognizing a health and safety emergency disproportionately affecting
the fundamental rights of children due to the Trump administration's
directives that unleash fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions that
contribute to climate change, while suppressing climate change science.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 16, 2025
Ms. Schakowsky (for herself, Ms. Jayapal, Mr. Raskin, Ms. Tlaib, Ms.
Lee of Pennsylvania, Mr. Thanedar, Mrs. Ramirez, Ms. Ansari, Ms.
Norton, Mr. Carson, Ms. Velazquez, Ms. Barragan, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Ms.
Titus, Mr. Frost, Mrs. Watson Coleman, Mr. Cohen, Ms. Scanlon, Ms.
Simon, Mr. Nadler, Ms. Castor of Florida, Mr. Mullin, Mr. Davis of
North Carolina, Ms. Brownley, Mr. Min, Ms. Jacobs, Ms. Chu, Ms. Dexter,
Mr. David Scott of Georgia, Mr. Takano, Mr. Amo, Mr. Huffman, Ms.
Kamlager-Dove, Mrs. Foushee, Ms. Balint, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Mr.
Khanna, Ms. Adams, Mr. Torres of New York, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Tokuda,
Mr. Soto, Mr. Lynch, Mrs. McIver, Ms. Hoyle of Oregon, and Mrs. Hayes)
submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to
the Committee on Energy and Commerce
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Recognizing a health and safety emergency disproportionately affecting
the fundamental rights of children due to the Trump administration's
directives that unleash fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions that
contribute to climate change, while suppressing climate change science.
Whereas Congress approved the establishment of the Environmental Protection
Agency in 1970 and enacted the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.) to
exercise the United States sovereign authority and duty to protect the
air, water, lands, and seas of the United States from pollution that
harms human health and welfare and the natural environment;
Whereas the administration of President Donald J. Trump exceeds its authority by
directing Federal agencies, in violation of the Constitution and Acts of
Congress, to unleash domestic fossil fuel production, while inhibiting
the production of clean, renewable energy and electric vehicles, knowing
that fossil fuel production will increase greenhouse gas emissions that
contribute to climate change and injure the children of the United
States;
Whereas the Executive orders of President Trump that are being implemented by
Federal agencies--
(1) unleash and expand fossil fuel extraction, including what President
Trump calls ``beautiful clean coal'', and eliminate environmental
protections while blocking the least expensive and cleanest forms of
renewable energy, such as wind energy, solar energy, and energy storage
technologies;
(2) invoke emergency powers to support a false national energy
emergency;
(3) increase the already-excessive United States production and
reliance on fossil fuels to achieve ``energy dominance''; and
(4) suppress and deny policymakers, scientists, and students access to
critical climate science data and information;
Whereas President Trump's declaration of a national energy emergency is false
because--
(1) the United States is producing more oil and gas than at any other
time in history;
(2) energy experts report that, since 2020, the United States has
exported more petroleum (products made from crude oil) than it has
imported, and the experts agree that the United States has ample energy
resources to meet its needs in 2025 and into the future; and
(3) the production of less costly, clean, renewable energy and electric
vehicles is being impeded;
Whereas the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and President
Trump are defying the Agency's core mission to abate pollution and
preserve ``the Earth as a place both habitable by and hospitable to
[hu]man[s]'' as approved by Congress by disregarding its statutory
mandates and permitting exemptions to emit hazardous air pollutants and
promote fossil fuel development;
Whereas experts, including physicians and other public health experts, have
found that President Trump's Executive orders will increase air
pollution and cause at least an additional 195,857 deaths over the next
25 years;
Whereas there is no compelling government interest in unleashing fossil fuel
energy, allowing destabilizing amounts of greenhouse gas emissions to
enter the air, and endangering the Earth's life support systems and
young people's right to life;
Whereas the Constitution of the United States protects children's fundamental
rights to life, liberty, and property, and equal protection of the laws;
Whereas the United States was founded on a stable climate system necessary for
children to exercise their rights to life, liberty, and property, which
include rights to the pursuit of happiness, dignity, personal security,
family autonomy, bodily integrity, and the ability to practice cultural
and religious traditions;
Whereas the right to life, as the Framers of the Constitution intended, includes
the right of current and future generations to pursue happiness,
vitality, and a full lifespan;
Whereas there is overwhelming scientific consensus that human-caused greenhouse
gas emissions from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is causing
unprecedented warming on Earth and dangerous impacts to the climate
system;
Whereas the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has risen from 350 parts
per million in 1988 to over 424 parts per million in 2024 due to
accelerated fossil fuel use, when carbon dioxide levels hovered no
higher than 285 parts per million for most of human life on the planet;
Whereas fossil fuel-induced temperature increases are dangerously accelerating
faster today than they did during the 20th century, with the 10 warmest
years on record all occurring since 2015;
Whereas a substantial portion of every ton of carbon dioxide emitted from the
production and combustion of fossil fuels persists in the atmosphere for
at least centuries, which, if fossil fuels continue to be produced, will
worsen the steady accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,
continued heating of the Earth, loss of ice sheets and glacier mass with
sea level rise, and an increase in extreme weather events;
Whereas the United States must accelerate its transition to clean, renewable
energy across all energy sectors and pursue a trajectory consistent with
reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide to less than 350 parts per million
this century to reduce Earth's global heating at or below 1 degree
Celsius above preindustrial temperatures, stabilizing the climate and
protecting the fundamental rights of children;
Whereas greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are causing a public health
emergency that disproportionately harms children, decreasing their
quality of life, and imposing on them a lifetime of hardship because
children--
(1) are at a critical development stage in life with brains and lungs
that are not fully developed until around age 25;
(2) spend more time recreating outdoors and have more difficulty self-
regulating their body temperature, increasing their susceptibility to
excess heat and poor air quality;
(3) are still dependent on adults; and
(4) have longer lifespans than adults, exposing them to dangerous
conditions for a longer period of time than adults;
Whereas heat waves, droughts, wildfires, air pollution, heavy rainfall,
flooding, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events, exacerbated in
frequency and severity due to human-caused climate change, cause acute
and chronic physical harm in children through--
(1) extreme heat that increases heat exposure and illness, shortens
lifespans, and increases infant mortality by 25 percent on extremely hot
days;
(2) longer wildfire seasons with hotter and more destructive wildfires,
including the devastating January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles,
California, that increase children's exposure to wildfire smoke, causing
higher rates of asthma-related hospitalizations;
(3) greater pollen concentrations and a longer pollen season that
increase allergic rhinitis suffered by 19.87 percent of children; and
(4) more dangerous infectious disease patterns;
Whereas the American Academy of Pediatrics and American Psychological
Association have found that climate change has detrimental impacts on
the mental health of young people, including feelings of uncertainty
about the future and an understanding that their government is
disregarding the science and not protecting them from climate change,
all of which result in anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and
other chronic impacts;
Whereas Black, brown, Indigenous, low-income, and other vulnerable children,
including children on the front lines of human-caused climate change who
have borne the brunt of climate change--
(1) often live in communities that have long suffered from systemic
environmental racism and social and economic injustices;
(2) are more likely to reside in areas close to fossil fuel
infrastructure, increasing their exposure to air pollution, in the short-
and long-term, and be disproportionately burdened by adverse health or
environmental effects; and
(3) are subjected to disproportionate energy costs in terms of income
spent on energy;
Whereas Acts of Congress and longstanding Federal practice provide citizens,
policymakers, scientists, and students a reasonable expectation of
continued access to government-supported scientific research and data
regarding climate change and its solutions;
Whereas the Trump administration has directed executive departments, agencies,
and institutes--
(1) to change or remove references to climate change from Federal
websites;
(2) to remove thousands of crucial climate science datasets from
Federal websites;
(3) to withhold Federal funding for scientific climate research; and
(4) to punish institutions or individuals the Trump administration
labels as ``environmental extremists'', causing widespread government
imposed and coerced censorship;
Whereas the Trump administration's actions that suppress climate change science
cause irreparable harm to students--
(1) by denying access to critical climate change science needed to
protect children's fundamental rights;
(2) by hindering the ability of scientists, medical professionals, and
students to study and publish knowledge on climate change that is critical
to protect children from climate change risk; and
(3) by engaging in viewpoint discrimination through censorship,
cancellation of grant funding, and elimination of fields of scientific
study that chill students' and scientists' protected academic speech about
climate change;
Whereas President Trump's directives to unleash fossil fuels interfere with
young people's ability to exercise their fundamental rights to life and
a stable climate system as recognized by State constitutions, for
example, in Montana and Hawai`i, and the Constitution of the United
States and as beneficiaries of the public trust;
Whereas the high courts of other nations, the European Court of Human Rights,
and the United Nations General Assembly have affirmed the human right to
a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, and the fundamental
importance of a life-sustaining climate system as essential to other
human rights; and
Whereas 73,000,000 children in the United States, who are denied the right to
vote until they become 18 years old and are therefore politically
powerless, are harmed by the Trump administration's climate and energy
policies that they cannot influence: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That--
(1) leadership in the United States urgently needs--
(A) to recognize and address the current health and
safety emergency faced by children that is well
documented and supported by the scientific community;
(B) to express their opposition to President
Trump's Executive orders that unleash fossil fuels,
increase greenhouse gas emissions, block a vital clean,
renewable energy transition, and chill climate change-
related speech; and
(C) to demand the Trump administration--
(i) comply with congressional statutory
mandates and reverse ongoing implementation of
the Executive orders that increase fossil fuel
production, block clean, renewable energy and
electric vehicles, and weaken protections for
children;
(ii) restore the Environmental Protection
Agency to its core mission approved by
Congress; and
(iii) restore climate change resources and
climate science data on Federal websites;
(2) Congress and the Federal Government, including the
Trump administration--
(A) have a duty to constrain any government actions
that harm young people's lives and deprive them of
their fundamental constitutional rights only to those
actions strictly necessary to achieve a compelling
government interest; and
(B) should institute an intergenerational system of
governing that ensures equal treatment of children by
no longer discounting the lives of children and future
generations; and
(3) all energy and climate laws enacted by Congress and
Executive orders, regulations, and practices issued by the
executive branch with long-term impacts on the climate system
and human communities should be consistent with--
(A) protecting children's fundamental rights to
life, liberty, and property, which include rights to
the pursuit of happiness, dignity, personal security,
family autonomy, bodily integrity, the ability to
practice cultural and religious traditions, and a
stable climate system necessary for children to
exercise these rights; and
(B) putting the United States on a trajectory
consistent with reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide to
less than 350 parts per million by 2,100.
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