Elena Venner: “My life, my faith, and my future are harmed by the Repeal Rule.”
Elena Venner, Lead Youth Petitioner in Venner v. EPA.
May 20, 2026
When Elena Venner breathes in polluted air, she feels it in her chest. She has asthma, and something as basic as breathing, she says, is no longer guaranteed.
Elena is the lead petitioner in Venner v. EPA, a youth-led constitutional petition asking a federal court to reverse and vacate EPA's rule rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding (Repeal Rule), a landmark determination that greenhouse gas pollution threatens public health and welfare, and simultaneously eliminating all greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and trucks.
The excerpt below is from Elena's declaration, which explains to the court how the Repeal Rule will harm her and violate her constitutional rights. Filed on May 20, 2026, in support of the petitioners' motion for stay in the D.C. Circuit, asking the court to pause the Repeal Rule while the petition is decided on the merits.
“The Repeal Rule limits my ability to practice my sincerely held Catholic faith, which requires me to care for and value all life and instills in me the belief that I should bring life into this world and that life should be protected at all costs.
As the Repeal Rule causes more inescapable localized air pollution than is already in my area, I am forced to choose between creating future life or not.
It would be unconscionable for me to bring life into a world that doesn’t have healthy air to breathe. My Catholic faith requires the protection and nurturing of all children who are born into this world. Indispensable to my ability to bring life into this world is the fact that all communities, especially those with fewer advantages, need clean air to breathe.
The highest teaching of my faith is to “care for creation” (Genesis 2:15). I was deeply moved by the Pope’s encyclical letter, Laudato Si` of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home, which is attached to my declaration as Exhibit A. Laudato Si` emphasizes the importance of our responsibility as Catholics to care for our Earth in the specific circumstance of climate change.
It says: “The destruction of the human environment is extremely serious, not only because God has entrusted the world to us men and women, but because human life is itself a gift which must be defended from various forms of debasement.” “The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life.”
My Catholic faith drives me to love thy neighbor, care for everyone—respect everyone—and make sure everyone has access to life. Protecting my ability to bring life into the world and for future generations of my family to thrive and fulfill their filial duties necessarily requires protecting our natural resources and clean air.
The EPA’s Repeal Rule undermines those core values of my religious belief, as it is explicitly anti-life. As it clearly states in Laudato Si`: “For human beings… to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins”. For “to commit a crime against the natural world is a sin against ourselves and a sin against God.”
EPA’s action is stripping away the biggest part of my belief as a Catholic, which is respect for human life and my ability to bring life into this world. Catholic doctrine and Social Teaching emphasizes the dignity of all life and care for all creation, and I understand this to apply to the well-being of the entire planet. Being pro-life is part of my identity and religious belief.
Everyone should have access to what they need to live a good life, including safety, stability, food, healthcare, and a healthy environment – the church calls for the Universal Destination of Goods. This is part of being pro-life and valuing all life, including all people, animals, and the broader created world, and realizing how everything is interconnected.
Despite my religious beliefs and traditions, which emphasize the importance of family and openness to conceiving children, the air quality pollution the government is imposing on us through the Repeal Rule, which will only lead to more climate disasters and less healthy air to breathe, and more nature lost to fire and drought and flood, prevents me from adhering to the practice of my faith to be open to bringing a child into this world.
Catholicism emphasizes the importance of bringing life into this world and protecting and nurturing all children, but what about the environment that my future child will be born into? It violates my beliefs to bring someone into this world whose life would be burdened with hazardous air quality and increasing extreme and dangerous heat where my government’s single federal agency charged with keeping our air and environment safe, EPA, has just told the country that greenhouse gases don’t endanger our health and welfare and told car manufacturers that they can continue building internal combustion vehicles as long as they want to with no limits on greenhouse gas pollution. I cannot raise kids with air quality and climate conditions that do not support both my life and the lives of children I would bring into the world.
My Catholic faith and orientation deeply value the gift of children and life and teach that we must protect them. EPA’s decision to get rid of the Endangerment Finding and allow more air pollution interferes with me living out my faith’s doctrine that I be open to having children. I see what is already happening—faster even than scientific analysis has projected , and I know that conditions that support life, in utero, for newborns, for growing children, and for mothers, will be made worse by my government’s decisions in this case.
EPA’s Repeal Rule imperils life, my ability to bring life into this world, and my deepest faith values and practices. My life, my faith, and my future are harmed by the Repeal Rule.”
Read Elena’s full declaration here.