Washington, D.C. — Today, the Trump administration announced drastic plans to undo pollution standards vital to the protection of Americans’ health, including air quality standards for smog, soot, and air toxics, as well as emission requirements for power plants, vehicles, coal waste, and oil refineries.
The existing pollution standards save lives and prevent health conditions such as asthma, lung disease, heart attacks, and cancer. For example, the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) regulate six well-known harmful pollutants, including particulate matter (PM), and the 2024 PM 2.5 emission standard is projected to prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths, 800,000 cases of asthma symptoms, and 290,000 lost workdays in 2032. Additionally, coal ash program protections are essential to preventing coal waste, which contains contaminants such as mercury and arsenic, from getting into waterways and drinking water—especially due to increasing flooding from extreme storms and hurricanes. Rolling back vehicle emission standards, meanwhile, will force Americans to pay an additional $46 billion per year for gas while leading to $13 billion in additional health costs per year, including premature deaths.
In response, Trevor Higgins, senior vice president of the Energy and Environment department at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
The Trump administration and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced today that they are “reconsidering” almost the entire mission of the Environmental Protection Agency, which is responsible for carrying out the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act—laws that were enacted with bipartisan majorities at a time when America’s skies were filled with smog and America’s rivers were catching fire. Their attempt to roll back almost every safety standard on power plants, trucks, factories, and more is going to endanger millions of Americans.
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Sam Hananel at [email protected].