In March 2023, the BioLab facility near where I live had a chlorine gas leak that forced us to shelter in place. In June 2023, a fire at the Calcasieu Refining Co. tank farmnear where I live, resulted in an evacuation and shelter-in-place order. The year before, an explosion at a chemical plant in Westlakealso near where I live, injured at least six people and resulted in a lockdown of local schools.

Year 2020, Category 4 Hurricane Laura and Category 2 hurricane attended hit my part of Southwest Louisiana six weeks apart, and my family lost our home and we had to live in a FEMA trailer. In February 2021, winter storm Uri struckknock out nearly 100 water utilities across Louisiana. That May, approx 18 inches of rain fell in a short amount of time, more rain than we had seen in any of these hurricanes.

I created Ship project in Louisianaan organization for mutual aid and environmental justice, in the wake of the back to back destructive weather events we had had.

But there are some people who pretend this is normal. The League of Conservation Voters found that Zeldin voted against 51 of 53 measures which would have addressed climate change.

When I watch my children play, their laughter is a bittersweet reminder of what is at stake. I fear for their future, not only because of their particular health problems, but because the very environment we live in is being neglected and exploited. The Trump administration’s approach to environmental deregulation is a direct threat to the safety and health of our society. Decisions that withdraw from the Paris Agreement and rolling back critical environmental protections sends a frightening message: that corporate profits are more important than the lives of our children and the health of our communities.

This is a moment of reckoning, not just for Louisiana, but for the entire nation. We must educate our communities about the effects of environmental injustice and demand that our elected officials take action to protect us. Most importantly, the Biden administration must make this lame-duck term the most impactful it can be for my state, our country, and our planet.

In January, the Biden administration paused approval of the applications to export liquefied natural gas from new projects, and Bloomberg Law reported it last week administration “competing to complete a study” who will find that such projects are not in the public interest. Three applications for LNG projects are in my community. We need Biden, in these final two months of his term, to get that study done before Trump takes office, and to declare a climate emergency if necessary to speed up the process.

President Biden must also introduce new rules that will prevent states from finding ways to circumvent the federal government’s limits on how much air pollution facilities can emit. We ask him to do all he can to protect communities like mine and help lay the foundation for a sustainable future, one that prioritizes the health and safety of our children over corporate greed.

Corporate profits are obviously Zeldin’s biggest concern. “There are rules that the left wing in this country has championed through regulatory power which ends up causing companies to go in the wrong direction“, he said in a Fox News interview on Monday.

I live in a community where these companies and their pollution have made us sick. It feels like we are David, armed only with our voices and our passion, standing against the Goliath of a powerful administration bent on dismantling environmental protections. But David did not shy away from the fight, and neither can we.