Trump’s EPA to Slash Pollution Rules and Research Staff: A Major Blow to Environmental Protection?

Donald Trump’s administration has repealed a number of clean air and water regulations, a move that may severely impact US public health. According to The Guardian, these targeted rules were projected to save nearly 200,000 people in the coming years.

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has faced backlash after announcing plans to roll back 31 regulations, including those on cars and power plants, mercury emissions and clean water protections for rivers and streams.

Lee Zeldin, the EPA’s administrator, has called the extraordinary series of rollbacks the “greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen” and declared it a “dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion”. One of the most significant moves is reconsidering a landmark 2009 finding that greenhouse gases harm human health, a decision that underpins laws aimed at addressing the climate crisis.

The rules targeted by Zeldin provide immediate, measurable health benefits to Americans even without considering the longer-term impacts of the climate crisis. According to EPA assessments, these regulations could prevent nearly 200,000 deaths over the next 25 years by reducing heart, respiratory and other health problems caused by pollution.

Trump’s EPA has defended the rollbacks, arguing they will “roll back trillions in regulatory costs and hidden ‘taxes’ on US families”. However, the agency’s own analyses indicate that the regulations save the US economy far more money than it costs businesses to implement new pollution controls, by a factor of around six to one.

EPA Staff Layoffs

In addition to regulatory cuts, the EPA is planning to lay off more than 1,000 scientists and other employees from the US federal government as part of drastic cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), reported AFP.

Reports suggest that nearly 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists – 75% of the research programme’s staff – could be laid off. Critics argue that these planned layoffs are part of a broader push by the Trump administration to shrink the size of the federal government and make it more efficient but argue that this move is a massive dismantling of the EPA’s longstanding mission to protect public health and the environment, according to The Guardian.