Donald Trump’s EPA administrator Lee Zeldin recently announced the agency would be rolling back more than two dozen environmental rules. He called it the “largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history.” The 31 regulations govern everything from how much carbon dioxide cars and factories can emit, to how much mercury and soot we breathe.
Zeldin claimed the moves would lower the cost of living and pump up domestic industry. But many of these rules were put in place to protect human health and the environment.
The Allegheny Front’s Reid Frazier talked about what these actions will mean with Patrice Simms, Vice President for Healthy Communities at the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice.
LISTEN to the interview
Reid Frazier: The last time that Trump was in office, he rolled back close to a hundred rules and regulations on the environment, and many of those rules were eventually put back in place or re-upped by the Biden administration. What makes Lee Zeldin’s announcement this time any different in your mind?
Patrice Simms: Well, I’m not sure how different it is. I think it illustrates the same interest in catering to the desires of industry and of polluters to not have to spend money to control pollution that has detrimental impacts on people’s health and on environmental values.
We did see a suite of rulemakings in the first Trump administration, attempting to roll back important rules that have been put in place by EPA over the years, of course, at the direction of Congress through various statutes like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act. And of course, a lot of those attempts were ultimately unsuccessful, in part because in many instances they were simply illegal, contrary to what the statutes require.
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Reid Frazier: What were some of the common mistakes or errors the first Trump administration made where they lost these cases?
Patrice Simms: Sometimes there are procedural errors in a case. In other instances, it’s really a factual problem. Consider, for example, a rule that requires the agency to ensure reduction of emissions by a certain amount or in a way that provides a certain level of protection from harm for people’s health. If the agency makes a decision that on its face fails to achieve that level of control that is required by statute, the courts will send those decisions back to an agency to redo and to get it right.
Reid Frazier: How will the Trump administration justify rolling back some of these regulations? One of the rules that Administrator Zeldin mentioned was the one governing PM 2.5, or soot. That rule is based on decades of research that shows high levels of soot in the air kills people. It makes them sick and eventually kills them.
The law spells out that the EPA has to consult scientific research when setting these standards. Is there some research that they’re going to have to produce that shows that soot doesn’t make people sick, and doesn’t kill people, and isn’t bad for their health?
Patrice Simms: It’s important to understand that EPA is essentially a public health organization. It protects children and families and communities from exposure to harmful pollutants that have real impacts on people’s lives. But your observation about particulate matter, or soot pollution, is really important. It is one of the rules that administrator Zeldin identified in his announcement.
But the [Clean Air Act] identifies an obligation for the agency to set limits on the outdoor concentration of pollutants like particulate matter. And what that means is how much of this pollutant can be in the air outside? When you walk outside, how much of this pollution can be in the area that you breathe?
“I fear that what the intent of the administration is, is to rely on industry’s scientific assessments, who obviously do not have the public’s best interest at heart.”
The statute specifically directs the agency to identify the allowable level of particulate matter based exclusively on analysis of health impacts. That is, at what level of concentration in the outdoor air will adverse health effects begin to occur? And then the agency has to set a limit on that pollutant in the outdoor air at a level that’s adequate to protect human health with an ample margin of safety.
This is an incredibly science-based determination. It relies almost entirely on scientific studies. What might Zeldin bring forward to try to change that? I could not tell you, but certainly that’s exactly the question that we’ll be paying very close attention to. What is that data? Because we know what the science is telling us.
Reid Frazier: It’s been reported that the EPA has talked about dissolving its Office of Research and Development and purging up to 75% of the people who work there. That would be more than a thousand scientists. Maybe you could talk a little bit about what this branch of the EPA does and why it’s important in protecting public health.
Patrice Simms: One of the things that’s fundamentally true about the kinds of decisions that EPA makes is that the intent is that they are universally grounded in good science. The idea [is] we need to understand how pollutants enter and behave in the environment, how people are exposed to those pollutants, and what kinds of impact exposure to those pollutants and other toxic chemicals have on people.
“We’ll be making sure that whatever decisions are coming from EPA over this period of time, that they’re in full compliance with the law. And if they’re not, we will challenge those decisions in court.”
And it’s essential for EPA to be able to deal with that data, to deeply understand what the science is saying about pollution and toxic exposures, and to be able to then utilize that information in its decision-making and regulatory processes. And that’s one of the things that the Office of Research and Development does, or ORD does, is really the center for scientific understanding within EPA and helps to ensure the scientific integrity of the decisions that the agency is making across its regulatory obligations.
Dismantling that is incredibly problematic because it is the place where that independent, science-focused examination happens. And if you’re not doing that, I think the question then becomes, where are you getting your scientific evaluations and assessments? Who are you believing? And I fear that what the intent of the administration is, is to rely on industry’s scientific assessments, who obviously do not have the public’s best interest at heart. At least not all the time.
Reid Frazier: What will organizations like yours be doing to push back against this agenda, this deregulatory agenda in the months and years ahead?
Patrice Simms: We will be watching really closely the decisions that Zeldin and EPA make over the coming months and years. We have deep expertise in the science and the law, and we’ll be making sure that whatever decisions are coming from EPA over this period of time, that they’re in full compliance with the law. And if they’re not, we will challenge those decisions in court.
Patrice Simms is vice president for healthy communities at the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice.
