A Trump administration official freaked out Monday after leaked emails showed the Environmental Protection Agency plans to ditch a 40-year-old practice of putting a dollar amount on human lives saved by pollution rules.
Trump appointee Lee Zeldin’s EPA will still tally costs to businesses — but will ignore the lives those same rules protect, The New York Times reported.
The move targets fine particulate matter and ozone, pollutants that damage lungs and trigger asthma. The Times reports it will “make it easier to repeal limits on these pollutants from coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills, and other industrial facilities across the country.”
The Times interpreted the move to mean dirtier air for Americans and fatter corporate profits.
Zeldin, 45, fired back on X, calling The New York Times report the “exact opposite” of the truth.
“Cute BS headline. Entirely untrue, but the NY Times won’t ever let the truth get in the way of their desire to dumb down their readers,” Zeldin wrote. “The Times posted this ENTIRELY AWARE that EPA will continue considering lives saved when setting pollution limits.”
“EPA, like the agency always has, is still considering the impacts that PM2.5 and ozone emissions have on human health, but the agency will not be monetizing the impacts at this time,” an EPA spokesperson told the Daily Beast.
“As you know, the Biden administration also didn’t monetize many air pollutants in their rules,” the spokesperson added. “Did you ask them if they were abdicating their duty to protect human health and the environment? Not monetizing DOES NOT equal not considering or not valuing the human health impact. EPA is fully committed to its core mission of protecting human health and the environment.”
The Trump administration dismissed a Biden-era study showing the tighter pollution rules would prevent 4,500 premature deaths by 2032 as “doubtful.”
Richard Grenell, Trump’s pick to remake the Kennedy Center, chimed in on X, “Everyone knows this NYT headline is fake news and designed to simply attack Republicans, again – sadly, the NYT reporters and editors are the only ones not seeing that their reputations have imploded.”
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