President Trump’s new EPA administrator said Wednesday he was preparing to roll back dozens of landmark environmental rules, including those crucial to California programs on climate change and electric vehicles.
“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion,“ EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a news release.
One of the rules that Zeldin plans to overhaul is the agency’s finding in 2009 that planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health. Known as the “endangerment finding,” it is the legal underpinning for a host of climate regulations for motor vehicles, power plants and other sources of air pollution.
Environmental groups said they will fight the rollbacks.
“Today’s announcement is only the start of the process — not the end,” said Jackie Wong, senior vice president for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Before finalizing any of these actions, the law says EPA must propose its changes, justify them with science and the law, and listen to the public and respond to its concerns.”
“At a time when millions of Americans are trying to rebuild after horrific wildfires and climate-fueled hurricanes, it’s nonsensical to try to deny that climate change harms our health and welfare,” Wong said.
In all, Zeldin said, he is taking steps to unwind 31 environmental rules, calling it “the most consequential day of deregulation in American history.”
Among the rules to be overhauled are those restricting industrial pollution of mercury and other air toxins, as well as those limiting soot pollution and protecting wetlands.
“These actions will roll back trillions of dollars in regulatory costs and hidden taxes,” Zeldin said. “As a result, the cost of living for American families will decrease, and essentials such as buying a car, heating your home and operating a business will become more affordable.”
In a memo this week, Zeldin also said the agency was closing its environmental justice offices that had worked to lower pollution in poor communities. One of those offices was at the agency’s regional location in San Francisco.
Zeldin said the action was in response to President Trump’s executive order on “ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferences,” according to the memo, which was previously reported by the New York Times and CBS.
Environmental groups said the work by the environmental justice offices had helped protect vulnerable communities, which studies have shown can face higher levels of pollution.
“Ending environmental justice efforts does not serve the American people. It does not accomplish anything meaningful towards the EPA’s mission to protect our environment and keep our air and water clean,” said Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, in a statement. “There is only one purpose to Lee Zeldin’s announcement: to allow big polluters to continue cutting corners.”
The EPA established the Office of Environmental Justice in 1992 during the administration of Republican President George H.W. Bush.
Now known as the agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, it was greatly expanded in 2022 under then-President Biden.
Since becoming the agency’s administrator, Zeldin has canceled hundreds of grants, including some meant to help poor communities.
“Working hand-in-hand with DOGE to rein in wasteful federal spending, EPA has saved more than $2 billion in taxpayer money,” Zeldin said in a statement on Monday. “It is our commitment at EPA to be exceptional stewards of tax dollars.”
Last week, the EPA and the Justice Department dismissed a lawsuit against the corporate owner of a neoprene manufacturing plant in LaPlace, La.
The withdrawal of the case against the chemical maker, officials said in a news release, was part of Zeldin’s pledge to end the use of environmental justice “as a tool for advancing ideological priorities.”
The Biden administration had sued Denka Performance Elastomer LLC in 2023, alleging the plant had created an unacceptable risk of cancer to Black residents living nearby.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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