Trump talks tough on toxics but is rolling back rules

Energy & Environment

The Big Story

Trump talks tough on toxics but is rolling back rules

President Trump has repeatedly said he’ll take on toxic chemicals — but many of his administration’s actions are expected to allow for more pollution, not less.

During his joint address to Congress earlier this month, Trump talked about a boy whose cancer he blamed on a chemical exposure, saying that reversing the rise in child cancer rates in recent decades is “one of the top priorities for our new presidential commission to Make America Healthy Again.”

Trump has also adopted his Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” slogan — saying he’ll take on toxic substances that threaten Americans’ well-being.

“President Trump is committed to replacing unclean foreign energy with the liquid gold under our feet while Making America Healthy Again by ridding our environment, water, and food supply of dangerous toxins,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an email.

Weeks into Trump’s second term, the Department of Health and Human Services does appear poised to move toward chemical regulation in food.

But the administration has also taken significant steps to abandon or roll back efforts to reduce exposure to potentially toxic substances.

Last week, it dropped a lawsuit that aimed to force a company to reduce its emissions of a substance the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers likely to cause cancer in an already highly polluted area.

The administration also indicated that it is likely to reduce the stringency of safety screenings for potentially harmful chemicals.

Among the chemicals that are currently undergoing the screening process is vinyl chloride, a toxic substance used to make PVC plastic that was released, along with other chemicals, in a train derailment in Ohio in 2023. Trump repeatedly bashed the Biden administration’s response to the crash on the campaign trail last year.

Last week, the EPA also announced a broad slate of environmental rollbacks. Among the regulations the agency says it may reverse is a Biden-era rule regulating emissions of the carcinogen ethylene oxide, which is used to sterilize medical devices.

In January, the EPA also withdrew Biden-era plans to put a limit on the amount of “forever chemicals” that manufacturers are allowed to release into the water.

Read more at TheHill.com.

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