Change The Chamber Slams House Republicans’ Bill Undermining Health, Climate, and Environmental Justice
By The National Climate Fellows at Change the Chamber, May 22 , 2025
As a youth-led coalition, Change the Chamber sees this bill for what it is: an attack on our generation’s future. Young people across the country are stepping up to defend our planet and our communities, but we cannot build a better future if Congress keeps tearing down the progress we have fought so hard to make.
Photo by Antonio Peronace
Change the Chamber strongly opposes the House Republicans’ reconciliation bill passed early this morning. Passed under the cover of darkness, this deeply harmful piece of legislation undermines the health, safety, and economic well-being of millions of Americans. Framed under the guise of “fiscal responsibility,” this bill is a massive transfer of public resources away from working families and climate-impacted communities in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires and the ultra-wealthy. It is a coordinated attack on environmental protection, climate action, and the fundamental supports that families across the country depend on every day, all to protect polluter profits and reward those who need help the least.
The bill would claw back billions of dollars in unobligated Inflation Reduction Act funding that is currently slated for climate and environmental justice programs. These investments were secured to reduce harmful pollution, including eliminating lead from municipal water supplies, addressing abandoned oil and gas wells, and cleaning up dirty industrial zones. It also expands access to clean energy in communities that have suffered for decades from toxic exposure and neglect, ensuring all Americans have access to clean and reliable energy sources. Removing this funding would halt critical progress, leaving communities with higher rates of asthma, cancer, and extreme heat exposure with even fewer tools to protect themselves.
The legislation also cuts funding for conservation and climate-smart agriculture initiatives that are helping farmers respond to a changing climate. These programs support soil restoration, drought resilience, methane reduction, and water conservation, and are vital to keeping our agricultural economy sustainable. This bill abandons farmers and rural communities who are on the frontlines of increasingly intense storms, unpredictable weather, and crop loss due to heat and water stress.
Alongside these environmental rollbacks, the bill opens up more of our public lands to oil and gas leasing. It guts environmental review processes and weakens community input requirements, all in the service of fast-tracking fossil fuel development. This giveaway to oil and gas companies hands over our shared public resources to private polluters while guaranteeing more emissions and environmental destruction for decades to come.
The damage does not stop there. The bill also slashes critical public benefit programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). These programs are lifelines for families living in poverty, many of whom are already experiencing the worst climate impacts with the fewest resources. Cutting health care and food assistance while simultaneously stripping climate investments will deepen existing inequalities and push vulnerable communities closer to the brink.
As a youth-led coalition, Change the Chamber sees this bill for what it is: an attack on our generation’s future. Young people across the country are stepping up to defend our planet and our communities, but we cannot build a better future if Congress keeps tearing down the progress we have fought so hard to make. We are the generation that will live with the consequences of climate inaction. We deserve a say in the decisions that shape our future, and we will not sit back while our leaders sell it off to the highest bidder.
This is not a budget proposal rooted in care or responsibility. Instead, it is a roadmap to more pollution, more suffering, and more profit for those who already have the most. It asks working families, farmers, and communities of color to pay the price while fossil fuel companies and special interests continue to benefit from subsidies, carve-outs, and deregulation.
Change the Chamber calls on the Senate to outright reject this polluter’s first package. Our government should be investing in solutions that protect people and the planet, not taking those solutions away when they are needed most. The climate crisis is accelerating. Our communities are asking for help. This bill answers with abandonment — and our generation will not forget it.
The National Climate Fellows at Change the Chamber
Change The Chamber is a nonpartisan coalition of young adults, 100+ student groups across the country, environmental justice and frontline community groups, and other allied organizations.