The US Environmental Protection Agency announced it would seek to roll back 31 climate, air and water pollution, and emissions regulations, declaring this is the “biggest deregulatory action” in US history.

Leading environmental health voices say that rolling back pollution and climate regulations will inextricably harm the public’s health, though the Trump administration asserts that no such link exists.

In a flurry of press releases, the US Environmental Protection announced it would review or revise dozens of landmark regulations dating back decades – though it is not clear which regulations would be weakened or eliminated. 

“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the US and more,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in a press statement.

If the EPA’s actions are approved through a period of public comment, the Trump administration will eliminate “trillions of dollars” in regulatory costs and “hidden taxes,” according to Zeldin.

Under attack is a 2009 EPA finding that climate change-causing pollutants, including methane and carbon dioxide, harm human health. Without this “endangerment” clause, the EPA will clear the way for widespread dismantling of greenhouse gas emission regulations. 

“I’ve been told the endangerment finding is considered the holy grail of the climate change religion,” Zeldin said in a video posted on X. 

But environmental health experts warn reversing this finding will directly affect health, and point to how protecting public health seemed second to lowering energy costs and regulatory burden for the EPA now.

“The potential increase in health-related expenses, environmental degradation, and the stifling of innovation will lead to higher costs for consumers and impede economic growth,” said Margo Oge, former EPA director of transportation and air quality. 

“These actions will not make America great – they will just make Americans sicker,” she said in a LinkedIn post.

President Trump’s chief environmental officer also announced plans to target 31 key regulations that would reduce wetland protections, loosen climate pollution from vehicles and power plants, wastewater from coal plants, and air pollution from the energy and manufacturing sectors – including restrictions on mercury, a known neurotoxin. The administration also plans to overturn the “good neighbor rule,” which requires states to address pollution carried downwind to other states. 

Wednesday’s announcements follow similar actions upending the US’s environmental protection, including shuttering offices dedicated to environmental justice, firing hundreds of EPA staff, and removing key scientific advisors from leadership.

Clean air ‘inextricably’ linked to better health

Currently, the EPA has operated under the Endangerment Finding, which determined that climate change pollutants threaten public health and welfare. This has led to multiple actions establishing pollution standards for power plants, cars and freight trucks, and oil and gas facilities, according to an Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) analysis.    

The EPA claims that its actions reflect “updated science” since the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling that greenhouse gases are considered pollutants under the Clean Air Act. But experts posit that the scientific evidence linking climate change to adverse health outcomes has only grown.

Recent epidemiological modelling studies attribute 5-10 million deaths from air pollution each year. Particulate matter and ozone air pollutants can trigger heart disease, strokes, chronic pulmonary diseases, in addition to asthmas and respiratory diseases.

More broadly, climate change can disrupt access to health care services, threaten infrastructure, and pose physical and mental health risks, according to a still-active EPA webpage. Extreme weather, poor air and water quality, flooding, droughts, and insect-borne diseases are all expected to increase as the global climate continues to change.

But under the EPA’s cornerstone Clean Air Act, which until this week included greenhouse gas emissions, returns $9 to public health, the environment, and productivity for every $1 spent reducing mobile source emissions, according to an EPA webpage.

 “We have ample evidence that climate change pollutants, both directly and indirectly, are profoundly harming health,” said Dr Lynn Goldman, dean of the George Washington Milken School of Public Health, and former EPA official in a statement to Health Policy Watch.

“We need to confront the dangers of harmful pollution using a multitude of tools whether regulatory or via providing economic incentives. There seems to be an intention of willfully cutting off both of these avenues but putting our heads in the sand, while providing some with short term profits, is no solution to the challenge of climate change.”

Clean water regulation also under attack

The EPA specifically singled out how the agency would define “waters of the United States,” which guides how waterways are protected. A 2023 Supreme Court ruling narrowed the definition of waterways the Clean Water Act protects, saying the Act only extends to “wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right”.

The Trump-era EPA leadership has since asserted that it should only protect “continuously flowing body of waters,” excluding smaller, seasonal streams and revoking protections for more than half of US wetlands. 

But environmental groups contend that an attack on wetlands is an attack on water quality.  

“Without Clean Water Act protections for the more than half of the wetlands in the United States targeted by this rule, Americans can expect: lower quality drinking water resulting in poorer human health, less resilience to flooding,” said Jared Mott, Conservation Director for the Izaak Walton League, a conservation and recreation group.

Though Zeldin has promised to protect America’s water, the administrator argued that  “[t]he previous Administration’s definition of ‘waters of the United States’ placed unfair burdens on the American people and drove up the cost of doing business.

“Our goal is to protect America’s water resources consistent with the law of the land while empowering American farmers, landowners, entrepreneurs, and families to help Power the Great American Comeback.” 

A win for industry to ‘unleash American power’

The fossil fuel, chemical, and vehicle industries have lobbied for these rollbacks since the first Trump administration, arguing that regulations stifle growth.

The EPA said it would obtain input from stakeholders “sidelined” during the Biden administration, such as ranchers, developers, and larger industry. 

“While accomplishing EPA’s core mission of protecting the environment, the agency is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lower cost of living for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law, and give power back to states to make their own decisions,” the agency said in a statement.

Though the EPA’s efforts appear to combat the rising costs of energy for US households, analysts expect the costs to increase nonetheless as Trump’s tariff wars escalate. Oil production in the US’s vast energy sector relies on metal now tariffed from Canada and Mexico, according to industry experts. 

Furthermore, the EPA’s plans are likely to be challenged in court. “In the face of overwhelming science, it’s impossible to think that the EPA could develop a contradictory finding that would stand up in court,” said David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

Responding to criticism that the EPA would leave the environment vulnerable to degradation, Zeldin wrote in a WSJ opinion “[n]othing could be further from the truth. Under the Trump administration, the EPA’s core mission remains safeguarding human health and the environment. The difference lies in how we achieve these goals—through partnership rather than prescriptive bureaucracy, through collaboration rather than regulation.”

But critics say rolling back decades of regulation undermines the US’s position as an environmental health protection leader. “We are sacrificing our ability to lead the world in developing common sense solutions,” said Goldman. 

Image Credits: AP/Sierra Club, Janusz Walczak/ Unsplash, EPA, Janusz Walczak, Face the Nation.