Protect Our Planet: Climate Action and Environmental Justice | March 24, 2026
Protect Our Planet for March 24, 2026: States fight the EPA climate rollback in federal court, $400M in farmer drought aid vanishes, and monarch butterflies stage a 64% comeback.
The legal fight to save our climate just moved into federal court. Twenty-four states and ten cities filed suit this week to block the Trump administration’s repeal of the EPA endangerment finding — the legal backbone of all U.S. greenhouse gas regulation. At the same time, independent experts confirmed the administration’s $1.3 trillion “savings” claim doesn’t hold up — and western farmers are still waiting on $400 million in drought relief that vanished without a word.
But in Mexico’s mountain forests, monarch butterflies are back — up 64%, clinging to the oyamel firs in defiance of extinction. We are a movement built not by billionaires or kings, but by everyday people who refused to give up. The future is not lost. It is being built — by us, right now.
🌿 Protect Our Planet: This Week’s Environmental Warnings
The climate crisis generates noise every week. Here is what the noise is actually telling us — and why it matters to our movement.
⚖️ 24 States and 10 Cities Are Fighting to Protect the EPA’s Climate Authority in Court
Twenty-four states, ten cities, and five counties filed suit in federal court this week, challenging the Trump administration’s repeal of the 2009 EPA endangerment finding — the legal foundation for all greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act. Without it, no federal authority exists to limit emissions from cars, power plants, or oil and gas facilities. The suit follows an earlier challenge by environmental and public health groups last month. Seattle Times
Why This Matters: The endangerment finding was the legal spine of America’s entire climate defense. Repealing it doesn’t just gut today’s protections — it is designed to permanently strip future administrations of the authority to act. Frontline communities who breathe the dirtiest air pay first. Protect Our Planet has always known courts are a critical battleground. Twenty-four attorneys general just stepped up. So must we.
💸 The Administration’s “$1.3 Trillion in Savings” Claim Doesn’t Survive Scrutiny
The Trump administration celebrated the endangerment finding repeal as saving Americans $1.3 trillion. But fact-checkers found the figure counts only costs, never benefits — and one of the EPA’s own internal analyses shows the rollback could cost Americans $180 billion on net once higher gas prices are factored in. That calculation still ignores health and climate damages, which experts put as high as $4.7 trillion. Mother Jones
Why This Matters: When polluters write the rules, working families foot the bill — and the real numbers are damning. The $1.3 trillion figure erases dirtier air, higher fuel costs, and greater climate harm. Environmental racism means those costs land hardest on communities already carrying the heaviest pollution burden. Don’t let the spin win. The math is on our side.
🌾 Trump’s USDA Silently Froze $400 Million in Drought Aid Promised to Western Farmers
Eighteen irrigation districts across 12 western states, plus tribal communities, were selected to receive up to $400 million through USDA’s Water-Saving Commodities program to upgrade water infrastructure and survive devastating drought. Since January 2025, the money has been frozen with no explanation and no communication to recipients — in some cases, farmers discovered their USDA contacts had quietly left the agency without a word about the grants. Mother Jones
Why This Matters: Drought is not a future threat in the American West — it is this season’s emergency. These grants were promised investments in communities with no safety net when federal commitments disappear. Abandoning them isn’t fiscal responsibility. It is climate denial wearing work boots — and the farmers and tribal water managers left waiting deserve accountability, not silence.
🦋 Monarch Butterflies Are Surging in Mexico — But the Threats Haven’t Gone Anywhere
The eastern monarch butterfly population grew 64% this winter, with colonies covering the largest area of Mexican mountain forest recorded since 2018, according to WWF-Mexico and government conservation partners. Improved weather, milkweed restoration, and reduced illegal logging drove the rebound. But scientists warn the population remains more than 80% below 1990s levels, and climate change, pesticides, and habitat loss continue to threaten survival. The Guardian
Why This Matters: The monarch’s migration connects communities across Canada, the U.S., and Mexico — it is a living map of our continent’s environmental health. This comeback happened because people fought for it. But it’s fragile, and the Trump administration is dismantling the pesticide rules, habitat protections, and conservation funding that make recovery possible. We cannot celebrate and then look away.
Why the Grassroots Resistance Can’t Wait
💥Your Power in Action: What You Can Do Today
🧪 Take action: Tell the EPA to stop promoting forever-chemical fertilizer
🛑 Take action: Stop Trump’s attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency
🚫 Take action: Stop approving gas export terminals
🛢️ Take action: No oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
🚄 Take action: Sign the petition to support high-speed rail projects
👑 Bonus action: Sign up for the next national No Kings Day of Action and show up in solidarity with everyone whose rights are under attack.
🗳️ Bonus action: Register to vote, vote in every election, and help your community do the same. Our freedoms are won and lost at the ballot box.
The movement for grassroots climate action starts here.
💔 Why These Stories Matter
Every story this week follows the same pattern: a systematic dismantling of the legal, scientific, and financial infrastructure that protects people from corporate pollution and the climate crisis. The endangerment finding repeal is designed to make future climate action legally impossible. The frozen drought aid signals to rural and tribal communities that their survival is not a priority. And the misleading savings claims exist to hide the real human cost of deregulation. The people absorbing those costs are not in boardrooms — they are in fields, frontline neighborhoods, and mountain forests where butterflies claw their way back.
And yet: the monarchs are back. Twenty-four attorneys general are in court. People Power United and the Protect Our Planet movement are organized and refusing to quit. People-powered movements built every environmental protection we have — from the Clean Air Act to the Endangered Species Act. We built those protections, and we can defend them. What we need is more of us, showing up and making the political cost of climate denial impossible to ignore.
🌱 What Comes Next: This Is How We Win
⚖️ DEFEND THE ENDANGERMENT FINDING — Tell your representatives the states are right: greenhouse gases are dangerous. Science doesn’t bend to politics. The exit ramp to clean energy exists.
💸 SHARE THE REAL COST — Help your community understand what the $1.3 trillion claim leaves out. When people know the hidden price tag, they act.
🌾 DEMAND THE DROUGHT FUNDS — Western farmers and tribal water managers were promised $400 million. Hold your elected officials accountable for every dollar.
🦋 PROTECT THE MONARCH — Urge U.S. Fish and Wildlife to finalize Endangered Species Act protection for monarchs before the window closes.
🗳️ VOTE LIKE THE PLANET DEPENDS ON IT — Because it does. Clean air, clean energy, and a livable climate all live and die at the ballot box.
👑🚫 BUILD PEOPLE POWER — Organize. Show up. Bring your neighbors. Every new person in this movement is one more voice fossil fuel billionaires cannot buy.
The climate crisis is playing out in your paycheck, on your power grid, and in our communities. We must rise to meet this moment. Together, we can protect our planet and build a just, sustainable future for generations to come.
Together, we can champion our rights, freedoms, and democracy, hold our leaders accountable to the people’s will, and inspire voters to make a meaningful difference.
Laurie Woodward Garcia (paid with hugs and kisses, not bought by special interests) Leader, People Power United
People Power United champions freedom over fascism, progress, and power to the people-and we do the work to make it happen. In this community, we will always speak out against racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, misogyny, sexism, ageism, ableism, sizeism, elitism, transphobia, misogynoir, and bigotry!
This is our moment to rise, resist, and reclaim our rights, freedoms, rule of law, and democracy. Millions of Americans are already refusing to back down — in the streets, at the ballot box, and in their communities.
Every movement that was ever won started with people who refused to quit. We are those people.
The future is not lost. It is being built — by us, right now.