Advocacy groups push back against EPA’s plan to reconsider environmental protections
Key takeaways:
- EPA will reconsider its 2009 Endangerment Finding, which said greenhouse gasses impair human health.
- Standards for particulate matter and mercury as well as automotive exhaust also will be reconsidered.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has announced plans to initiate 31 actions that may roll back environmental protections to stimulate the economy, but advocacy organizations contend that these plans will impair health and cost lives.
“EPA will be reconsidering many suffocating rules that restrict nearly every sector of our economy and cost Americans trillions of dollars,” Zeldin said in a video announcement posted to the EPA’s YouTube page.
These proposals cover nearly every regulation designed to protect clean air that the American Lung Association (ALA) and other advocacy groups have supported in recent years, according to Laura Kate Bender, ALA national assistant vice president of healthy air.
“These actions would be a tragedy for health,” Bender said during an ALA webinar addressing these plans. “It will essentially amount to a handout for polluters, and people across the country will bear the costs with their health.”
Greenhouse gases
Zeldin said EPA will reconsider its 2009 Endangerment Finding, which called carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride greenhouse gases that threaten health.
“I’ve been told the Endangerment Finding is considered the Holy Grail of the climate change religion,” Zeldin said.
Seven regulations on vehicles that followed this finding have had an aggregate cost of more than a trillion dollars, according to an EPA press release following Zeldin’s announcement that also called the connections between these gases and health “mental leaps.”
“This finding has only been strengthened since then, in terms of both our scientific understanding of the harms of these pollutants, and under the law, this has long been settled,” Will Barrett, senior director of nationwide advocacy for clean air at the ALA, said during the webinar.
Barrett noted that the Endangerment Finding underpins many of the EPA’s limits on air pollution, that it has been upheld in court, and that it has survived presidential administrations of both parties.
“The Endangerment Finding needs to continue to provide the backing for all of these public health protections,” he said.
EPA also is specifically reconsidering the mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which requires more than 8,000 facilities and suppliers in the United States to report on their emissions each year.
“The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is another example of a bureaucratic government program that does not improve air quality,” Zeldin said in a press release.
Mark Vossler, MD, president of the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility, noted that concentrations of methane specifically are double what they were during the pre-industrial era and that it is more than 80 times as potent over a 20-year timeframe as carbon dioxide.
“And it’s technically feasible to reduce methane in the air, because a lot of it leaks from pipelines [and] from wells,” Vossler said during the webinar.
Vossler also called the EPA’s monitoring program, technical assistance and pricing programs on excess methane highly effective as well as the “gold standard” for how pollutants should be regulated, and he strongly urged EPA to continue them.
“The health benefits of reducing this potent greenhouse gas in the near term are great,” he said. “We can’t afford to have more heat waves, more extreme weather events, and this is very cost effective.”
Further, Vossler said that methane creates ground-level ozone.
“Ground-level ozone is a potent pollutant, increasing the risk of asthma in kids and increasing the risk of COPD exacerbations and heart attack and strokes in adults,” he said. “This is something that’s actually easy to correct in the near term.”
Particulate matter
EPA also is now reconsidering the PM2.5 National Ambient Air Quality Standards, which regulates particulate matter at the 2.5 µg scale, saying that it “has raised serious concerns from states across the country and served as a major obstacle to permitting,” in an EPA press release following Zeldin’s announcement.
In 2024, EPA reduced the limit from 12 µg/m3 to 9 µg/m3, which would lead to 4,500 fewer premature deaths in 2032 if left in place, Allison Lee, MD, MS, ATSF, chair of the American Thoracic Society Environmental Health Policy Committee, said during the webinar.
“For every dollar spent, there could be as much as $77 in human health benefits,” Lee said.
The lower standard also would yield 290,000 fewer lost workdays and $46 billion in net health benefits, she added.
“The science has not changed. The science is clear. It’s consistent, convincing and solid,” Lee said. “Exposure to fine particulate matter harms health.”
Exposure to fine particulate matter has been linked to risks for premature mortality, including cardiovascular and respiratory mortality, even in communities with pollution that falls below these limits, Lee said.
“Policy-led reductions in air pollution make children healthier, and those children then become healthier adults,” she continued. “Rolling back the PM max means more asthma attacks, more heart attacks, more strokes and more deaths. In other words, rolling back the PM max means a less healthy America.”
EPA also will reconsider model year 2027 light-duty, medium-duty and heavy-duty vehicle regulations and greenhouse gas emission standards, which imposed more than $700 billion in regulatory and compliance costs, the agency said in a press release.
Barrett said that automotive standards save thousands of lives and billions of dollars in health benefits each year.
“These are the kind of standards that have been set for decades,” he said. “Those new engines from those classes of vehicles not only are producing less than a new engine today, but going forward, will reduce those impacts in the real world.”
Automakers already have invested billions of dollars in developing the technologies to meet these standards, Barrett continued, but announcements like this from EPA indicating potential changes only introduce uncertainty into the market.
“If they were not to remain in place, we’d be leaving billions of dollars, public health benefits, lives saved, asthma attacks avoided, all on the table, because our air will get dirtier as we go forward, because our engines are not getting cleaner,” he said.
Mercury, environmental justice
EPA will reconsider its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards as well, which it said caused regulatory uncertainty for coal plants in 12 states and would cost more than $790 million over the next decade beginning in 2028.
“Exposures to mercury are especially harmful in pregnancy and in childhood,” Maida Galvez, MD, board member with the Children’s Environmental Health Network, said during the webinar. “Mercury can permanently affect the developing fetus, causing damage to the brain so it affects children’s IQ and their ability to learn.”
Exposure also can lead to delays in developmental milestones including motor functions such as walking and running, Galvez continued, as well as in learning languages.
“Children’s brains are continuing to develop throughout childhood, so this is an ongoing concern beyond pregnancy,” she said.
The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants have yielded sharp reductions in mercury exposure in the United States, Galvez said.
“Mercury emissions have gone down by 90%,” she said. “When good policy is in place, we see the corresponding decline in those levels measurable in the U.S. population.”
These standards also have saved up to 11,000 lives each year and prevented thousands of heart attacks, asthma attacks and ED visits, Galvez continued.
“The benefits are clear,” she said. “This is the most important clinical intervention, good public health policy, and that’s why it’s so important to have this in place.”
EPA also will terminate its Environmental Justice arm and has placed its employees on administrative leave.
“Some believe that so-called ‘environmental justice’ is warranted to assist communities that have been left behind,” Zeldin said in an EPA press release. “But in reality, ‘environmental justice’ has been used primarily as an excuse to fund left-wing activists instead of actually spending those dollars to directly remediate environmental issues for those communities.”
Lee calls environmental justice a critical component to ensure the health of all Americans.
“There are people that live in closer proximity to power plants, or they live in closer proximity to major roadways,” Lee said.
The people in these communities will be more exposed to pollution, she continued, adding that the Environmental Justice office is tasked with ensuring that all Americans experience the benefits of a healthy environment.
“If Administrator Zeldin wants to keep the promise of defending every American’s access to clean air, then perhaps he needs to reconsider some of these actions,” she said, “which, in fact, are going to hurt all Americans, but perhaps hurt some communities more than others.”
Anticipated battles
The panelists noted that most of these policies are being reconsidered and are not in effect yet.
“These protections are all on the books, and they can’t be taken off the books with a press release. EPA is legally required to go through a process if they’re going to re-examine and reconsider these rules,” Bender said.
“Health groups will engage every step of the way to make it crystal clear that keeping them in place is essential for people’s health,” she continued.
Physicians for Social Responsibility are “going all out” in challenging these changes, Vossler said.
“There’s a worry that the implications of this aren’t fully realized on the part of elected officials,” he said. “We’re contacting, in my state, all of our members of Congress, making sure that they have all the information they need to understand what we’re talking about today, that these rollbacks are going to harm human health.”
Barrett cited the ALA’s “long history” of helping to implement and strengthen protective standards at the EPA.
“We will be there to voice strong support for the public health mission of the EPA, to uphold that mission, to advance the mission of cleaning the air and safeguarding the environment for people today and into the future,” he said.
Galvez noted how the Children’s Environmental Health Network has been “a constant voice for communities” in ensuring that “cutting-edge science is translated into program and policy change that makes a meaningful difference.”
Lee disagreed with Zeldin’s perspective that regulations needed to be rolled back to stimulate the economy.
“These policy-led reductions in air pollution have occurred at the same time as American GDP has grown,” Lee said. “You can still protect the health of Americans while growing the economy.”
The benefits of these regulations outweigh their costs by a ratio of 32 to 1, she continued.
“Cleaner air means better health, and that is cost-effective economic policy,” Lee said.
References:
- Endangerment and cause or contribute findings for greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act. https://www.epa.gov/climate-change/endangerment-and-cause-or-contribute-findings-greenhouse-gases-under-section-202a#. Updated Feb. 27, 2025. Accessed March 20, 2025.
- EPA announces action to implement POTUS’s termination of Biden-Harris Electric Vehicle Mandate. https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-action-implement-potuss-termination-biden-harris-electric-vehicle. Published March 12, 2025. Accessed March 20, 2025.
- EPA launches biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history. https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-launches-biggest-deregulatory-action-us-history. Published March 12, 2025. Accessed March 20, 2025.
- EPA terminates Biden’s Environmental Justice, DEI arms of agency. https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-terminates-bidens-environmental-justice-dei-arms-agency. Published March 12, 2025. Accessed March 20, 2025.
- Trump EPA announces path forward on National Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter (PM2.5) to aid manufacturing, small businesses. https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/trump-epa-announces-path-forward-national-air-quality-standards-particulate-matter. Published March 12, 2025. Accessed March 20, 2025.
- Trump EPA announces reconsideration of burdensome Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/trump-epa-announces-reconsideration-burdensome-greenhouse-gas-reporting-program. Published March 12, 2025. Accessed March 20, 2025.
- Trump EPA kicks off formal reconsideration of endangerment finding with agency partners. https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/trump-epa-kicks-formal-reconsideration-endangerment-finding-agency-partners. Published March 12, 2025. Accessed March 20, 2025.
- Trump EPA to reconsider Biden-Harris MATS regulation that targeted coal-fired plants to be shut down. https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/trump-epa-reconsider-biden-harris-mats-regulation-targeted-coal-fired-power-plants-be. Published March 12, 2025. Accessed March 20, 2025.
- U.S. EPA. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin launches the greatest day of deregulation in American history. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qae9bhymH50. Published March 12, 2025. Accessed March 20, 2025.