Update on August 8, 2025: The public comment period for the proposal to repeal the Endangerment Finding is open. SACE’s online form here makes it easy for you to submit a customizable comment.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has literally one job: to protect the environment and protect people from environmental harm. But the new political leadership at the EPA is instead eagerly serving the bidding of lobbyists and executives of powerful polluting industries, while sacrificing the environment, harming public health, and accelerating the climate crisis. Perhaps there is no greater example than EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s announcement today that the EPA is moving forward with a legal process to nullify the scientific finding that climate change harms public health and wellbeing.
The Trump administration’s EPA political leadership is stacked with former lobbyists and lawyers for polluting industries, creating a situation where the fox is dangerously guarding the henhouse. In the past six months, high-level positions at the EPA have been filled by individuals who previously worked for the chemical industry trade group, the oil and gas industry trade group, and various oil, chemical, pipeline, and energy companies. These political appointees have quickly gotten to work advancing anti-environment policies and dismantling the agency’s capabilities to carry out its mission, urged on by the influence of corporate polluters.
Here are just a few examples from the past few months:
- EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s March 12 announcement of pushing EPA to slash regulations in what he called “the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen,” and that the EPA would be “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion”
- EPA’s policy, issued March 12, to stop enforcing rules that hold back any stage of energy production and power generation, except under remarkable circumstances, and instructions to staff to stop enforcing violations for pollution from fossil fuel facilities
- Administrator Zeldin’s June 11 announcement that the EPA would be repealing all carbon pollution limits for power plants and rolling back mercury and air toxics standards
- Administrator Zeldin’s reneging on EPA grants to promote environmental initiatives, which has been found in multiple courts to have been an illegal move (see here and here)
- The Trump administration’s budget plan, which proposes to slash the EPA’s budget by over half, rendering the agency unable to protect public health and the environment beyond a bare minimum, according to former agency leaders
- Plans for mass firings, including of key scientists and researchers, and the elimination of the scientific research arm of the agency
- Today’s proposal to eliminate the Endangerment Finding, and repeal vehicle carbon emission standards
When all of this is taken together, it becomes clear that EPA Administrator Zeldin and the political appointees working under him are actively and purposefully sabotaging the EPA and keeping it from protecting Americans from environmental harms. They are eagerly eliminating rules to prevent polluters from harming the environment, giving a free pass to corporate polluters, and stripping the agency of its ability to do research or enforce environmental rules. This is truly a Polluters First Agenda.
We Will Pay Increased Costs and Bear Heavier Health Burdens
In attempting to justify these actions, Administration Zeldin and the EPA political leadership have tried to say that eliminating regulation saves industries money by not having to comply with the rules, but what they have attempted to hide from public view is the enormous costs borne by the American public from dealing with pollution and the costs of climate disasters.
An excellent Associated Press analysis by journalists Seth Borenstein, Melina Walling, Joshua A. Bickel, Matthew Daly, and M. K. Wildeman highlights how Zeldin’s anti-environmental motions could cause 30,000 deaths and cost Americans $275 billion per year — a price vastly higher than any savings from industry compliance costs. The same AP reporting also documents how the current EPA leadership has omitted communicating these deaths and costs in the fact sheets explaining their new rule proposals.
We Will Endure Worse Climate Change Impacts
In sabotaging the EPA, Trump, Zeldin, and the political appointees are recklessly undermining our ability to stave off the worst impacts of climate change even as we’re paying the price of intensifying flooding, wildfires, hurricanes, and extreme heat. The number of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters — like Hurricanes Helene, Irma, and Milton — has skyrocketed, with the last ten years accounting for nearly half of the costs of such disasters over the entire 44-year period that records have been kept.
SACE’s Executive Director, Dr. Stephen A. Smith, said, “The Trump administration is recklessly undermining the rules and agencies established to protect Americans’ health and our environment, while at the same time gaslighting Americans by telling us that climate disruption isn’t a threat. We can see with our own eyes the parade of horribles of repeating record-breaking climate disasters. We know that 2024 was the hottest year on record by a wide margin, and each of the last ten years has been the hottest year on record. We’ve had more flash flood warnings in 2025 than ever before, driven by climate warming, and we’ve seen far too many families and communities, such as those in the Texas floods and Hurricane Helene’s path across the Southeast, face the deadly and tragic consequences. It defies logic and common sense for the Trump administration to remove the foundational pillars of our pollution rules when the EPA’s sole job is to protect the people and places we love.”
Opportunities to Push Back
Throughout the coming year, there will be several opportunities for people to speak up in opposition to the Trump-Zeldin sabotage of the EPA and advancement of the Polluters First Agenda. As of the time of publishing this article, there are two active public comment periods we encourage you to participate in, and EPA will soon initiate a public comment period for rescinding the Endangerment Finding as well:
- The comment period for the Trump administration’s proposal to repeal all climate pollution limits from power plants is open through August 7. You can submit a comment in just one minute with our form here
- Next, you can submit a comment opposing the administration’s attempt to roll back rules limiting mercury and air toxics pollution with the online form here, through August 11
- Finally, you can share how the EPA has helped your community and what progress you’ve seen in your community thanks to the EPA and pollution standards by emailing me at chris@cleanenergy.org
As the administration continues along its reckless path, there will be more opportunities for you to speak up, and SACE will keep you updated about ways you can raise your voice to help protect the people and places you love.
