Public health in America and in our own region is being threatened. As a nurse who has worked and taught nursing students in communities of southeastern Pennsylvania for more than 25 years, I’m concerned.

Recently, what concerns me most is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team. Mr. Trump has chosen Myron Ebell. However, given Mr. Ebell’s past statements and associations there are indications that he does not understand the significance of climate change on public health.

President Richard Nixon, a Republican, established the EPA in 1970 in response to public outcry of environmental degradation. Since then, the EPA has successfully tackled some of the nation’s most pressing environmental health challenges, including banning the widespread use of DDT — a pesticide linked to cancer, miscarriages, and nervous system damage — and fully phasing out the use of leaded gasoline, a leading cause of brain damage in children.

Today the EPA is leading the charge to combat the greatest public health threat of our time: climate change. As a nurse educator I can attest that the impacts of climate change are devastating: severe storms that disrupt communities; floods that submerge entire neighborhoods; more polluted air that triggers asthma attacks; and warmer temperatures that lead to extend the range of illnesses like Zika, malaria, and Lyme disease.

Major professional health organization including the American Nurses Association, American Medical Association, and American Public Health Association all recognize climate change as a public health threat and urge immediate action including reducing fossil fuel generated energy.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ebell has ignored the scientific consensus regarding the human impact on climate change and falsely accused scientists of “alarmism.” Our air, water, food, and changing climate are too important to have someone playing a role in our federal environmental agency who does not accurately communicate the science or the urgency of climate change for the health of our children, our families, and our fellow Americans.

There is too much at stake for America to reverse the substantial progress we have made on climate change. In the last 10 years, the U.S. has set the first limits on carbon pollution from power plants with the Clean Power Plan, established new standards to double motor vehicles’ fuel economy, taken steps to rein in industrial methane pollution, and led the world to a global agreement on climate change.

At the national level, our leaders should take care to preserve these important gains and build on them. Reversing progress might satisfy the fossil fuel industry, but it would also send more Americans to emergency rooms and doctors’ offices across the country.

Here in Pennsylvania, the Department of Environmental Protection must continue to focus its attention on developing a plan to reduce carbon pollution from power plants. We know that reducing pollution and growing the economy go hand in hand, and we would be remiss to pass up a tremendous opportunity to develop our renewable energy resources while cleaning up the air, addressing climate change, and supporting public health.

Our agencies must be led by experts who rely on the best scientific evidence available. Our decision-markers should continue to support the Clean Power Plan and other critical efforts to tackle climate change. Our health is on the line.

Ruth McDermott-Levy is an assistant professor at Villanova University and a member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments.