Bad Faith and Worse Policy in Trump’s EPA

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin swore “to protect human health and the environment”—and is on a mission to do anything but.

By Gina McCarthy, Janet McCabe and Joe Goffman

In his January 16 Senate confirmation hearing, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said that EPA’s “mission is simple but essential: to protect human health and the environment.” He pledged to “enthusiastically uphold” that mission.

By the end of March, Zeldin had done a complete about-face on his promise. He announced a sweeping agenda to overturn protections from dangerous air pollution, directing the agency to “reconsider” (read “weaken” or “repeal”) more than 20 regulations that protect us from carcinogens, neurotoxins, and other air pollutants produced by power plants, iron and steel manufacturing plants, chemical plants, commercial sterilization facilities, tire manufacturing, copper smelting, coke ovens, and more heavy industry. If Zeldin gets his way, thousands of factories, as well as cars and trucks, will have a green light to emit more air pollution in American neighborhoods all across our country.

We need to be watching what this EPA administrator does, not what he says.

As part of Zeldin’s agenda, he has offered nine industrial sectors the opportunity to move their deadlines to reduce their toxic emissions back two years by simply emailing the agency to ask for an extension. It didn’t take long for the American Chemistry Council and the American Fuels and Petrochemical Manufacturers to jointly request an industry-wide exemption from the requirements to reduce carcinogenic and other high-risk pollutants from 200 chemical plants ranging from Texas and Louisiana to the Ohio River Valley and the greater Southeast Region. The operator of the dirtiest coal plant, Colstrip in Montana, has also already submitted an extension request.

By announcing such a sweeping approach to stripping regulations, Zeldin has laid bare just how grave the stakes of a hobbled EPA are for American public health, and how far he has departed from his pledge to protect human health and the environment.

The Clean Air Act, the EPA’s founding legislation, has served as a powerful engine for improving public health since its passage in 1970. It has saved lives and improved the health of millions of Americans as our air has grown visibly clearer and cleaner. A recent analysis by a group of former EPA experts showed that just a subset of Clean Air Act rules yield $254 billion in health benefits for Americans while costing industry just $39 billion annually through 2050. Millions of Americans have avoided illnesses, hospital visits, and premature deaths because of cleaner car and truck standards in concert with rules that limit industrial pollution.

Zeldin is now trying to take away these protections. If he succeeds, the human health and financial benefits will be erased.

Zeldin defends his agenda on economic terms, but what he doesn’t get is that what is good for public health is good for Americans across all measures of quality of life, including the economy. EPA has always ensured Americans don’t have to choose between crucial health protections and affording a car, heating a home, or running a business. It has long succeeded at helping our country continually improve air quality as the economy changes and grows.

It is a good bet that Zeldin will try to move beyond two-year extensions to ensure that chemical plants and other industries never have to reduce a pound of their toxic air emissions. He should be building a strategy to conquer the next frontier in environmental health: understanding cumulative impacts of multiple pollutants and devising ways to reduce them. Instead, he is putting his finger on the scale for fossil fuels and tearing down protections people need. If “energy dominance” is the administration’s goal, EPA’s mission is to make sure that America’s health and environment don’t pay the price for achieving it. Zeldin’s misaligned effort will only push us toward more health threats and environmental disasters, making us less safe, increasing costs, and raising insurance premiums. The most vulnerable among us will suffer the most, but everyone will be affected by Zeldin’s actions.

So what can be done? First, it is important to note that neither the President nor the EPA Administrator can just relax emission standards at any facility without justification or legal process. Executive Orders are not laws, and emails to EPA saying "mother may I pollute more" are not enough to allow regulated industries to run rampant.

To protect our health and environment, we urge Americans to trust in the power of their own voices to demand better from their government.

That starts with making sure that EPA follows the legally-mandated steps to take each action Zeldin has announced, by sending comments to the agency when EPA formally proposes each of the actions on his list. Let EPA know how weakening or removing pollution standards affects you or your community. Make sure your elected officials know that protecting people’s health from pollution and opposing the Trump administration’s anti-environmental actions is a priority. Speak up locally, correct misinformation, support good local policies, and object to bad ones. We cannot lose hope or walk away; the stakes for our kids and grandkids are too high.

All of us, working with community leaders and mayors living in the shadow of chemical and power plants, need to say, “enough is enough.” We cannot let EPA give a free pass to plants that are emitting more pollution just because Zeldin gave them a green light. EPA must uphold its mission and never stop fighting for our health, our environment, and our future.

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Gina McCarthy served as the 13^th U.S. EPA Administrator. Janet McCabe served as the U.S. EPA Deputy Administrator in the Biden administration. Joe Goffman served as the U.S. EPA Assistant Administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation. All three led the U.S. EPA Office of Air and Radiation under different administrations.