While Trump pledges to combat toxics, his EPA moves to loosen chemical 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."
“Our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply and keep our children healthy and strong,” he added.
More broadly, Trump has 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’s agenda is proof that we can restore American energy dominance while advancing environmental stewardship. 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.
Kennedy said this week that the administration would “explore potential rulemaking” in response to a loophole that currently allows companies to put chemicals in food without telling regulators.
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.
The administration also signaled plans to roll back Biden-era rules that aim to prevent chemical disasters at 12,000 industrial facilities, including chemical manufacturers and distributors, oil refineries, food and beverage manufacturers and agricultural supply distributors.
This 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.
These chemicals — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS, which can last for a very long time in the environment instead of breaking down — are found in common products like nonstick pans and waterproof clothing and cosmetics. They have also been linked to a wide range of illnesses including cancers and immune system and fertility issues.
In addition, the administration has appointed a number of former chemical industry insiders to key roles within the EPA. The top official currently listed in the agency's office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention used to work for a chemical industry trade and lobbying group.
Trump's pick for the No. 2 role at the EPA represented opponents of a ban on asbestos in court. His nominee to lead its air and radiation office has lobbied on behalf of makers of “forever chemicals” and users of ethylene oxide, among others. The administration has also hired a 30-year veteran of chemical company DuPont, which has historically made and used “forever chemicals.”
A spokesperson for the EPA argued that the administration can balance environmental protection and the economy.
“No longer will the EPA view the goals of protecting our environment and growing our economy as binary choices. We will and we must choose both,” the spokesperson said. “This week, Administrator [Lee] Zeldin participated in the first meeting of the Make American Healthy Again Commission led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and our team at EPA looks forward to closely collaborating on ways to fulfill President Trump’s goal of removing toxins from the environment and our food supply and keeping our children healthy and strong.”
Environmental advocates, however, have sounded alarms about the potential impact of the administration's moves.
Daniel Rosenberg, director of federal toxics policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, described the appointment of industry-tied individuals to high ranking positions as equivalent to allowing a fox to guard a hen house.
“Every fox guarding the hen house or the chicken coop is a problem,” he said.
Eve Gartner, director of crosscutting toxics strategies at advocacy group Earthjustice, said that the administration's likely reduction of the stringency of chemical safety screenings would impact reviews for chemicals like that released in the East Palestine, Ohio, train crash — though whether vinyl chloride itself would be subject to a looser review would depend on how long it takes the administration to finish the rollback.
She said that if the Trump administration makes the changes it has signaled, it may “ignore the impact of vinyl chloride on fence line communities and communities along transportation routes that are vulnerable to that kind of disaster that we saw in East Palestine.”
More broadly, she warned that the administration's pro-industry policies could result in significant damage to Americans' health.
“We know that the rules that were adopted in the Biden administration would result in significant health benefits for communities including lower cancer rates and rolling back those rules inevitably will result in more cancer, including more children with cancer,” Gartner said.
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