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- Repealing key protections could erase $254 billion in annual benefits for public health and the environment, compared with $39 billion in savings for regulated industries
- Looser rules around air and water quality could also lead to worsening asthma attacks, increased ER visits and other adverse health outcomes
The Trump administration’s slash-and-burn approach to federal programs has delivered a considerable hit to the nation’s environment, but experts say its plans to repeal hard-won protections for clean air and water will also directly jeopardize Americans’ health — and their wallets.
Two new reports from environmental watchdog groups outline how the administration’s recent regulatory rollbacks, cuts to climate programs and promotion of fossil fuel production will significantly increase the cost of living for millions of people and bring about hundreds of thousands of premature deaths.
That’s in contradiction to the claims made by Trump and his allies — including Elon Musk and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin — that they are gutting the nation’s climate programs in an effort to ease regulatory costs, lower taxes and “power the great American comeback.”
Instead, the rollback of some of the nation’s key environmental safeguards could lead to nearly 200,000 additional premature deaths in the next 25 years; cause more than 10,000 extra asthma attacks each day; and cost the public six dollars for every dollar supposedly saved by regulated industries, according to a recent analysis from the Environmental Protection Network, a D.C.-based group composed of more than 600 former EPA workers.
“We’ve never seen anything like the scale of the attack that we’re seeing on public health and at EPA in particular,” said Jeremy Symons, a senior advisor with the EPN. “It’s alarming to me that these rollbacks that will so profoundly impact the air we breathe and the water we drink might get lost in all the other noise and chaos of what’s coming from Washington. It’s beyond troubling — it’s infuriating.”
Indeed, the nation’s top environmental agency has been mired in a flurry of activity in recent weeks as the administration delivers blow after blow to its programs: canceling grant funds, shuttering offices, laying off workers and targeting projects geared toward air and water quality, electric vehicle infrastructure and curbing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
The agency’s plan to repeal or weaken more than two dozen environmental regulations could deliver a direct blow to causes close to the heart of Californians — including air and water quality standards, electric vehicle initiatives and efforts to curb planet-harming greenhouse gas emissions.
Among the changes announced were the EPA’s plans to repeal or weaken 31 environmental regulations, including a bedrock principle known as the “endangerment finding,” which affirms that carbon dioxide emissions pose a threat to human health and welfare.
Zeldin described the announcement in March as the “greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history.” The EPN’s analysis found that it comes at a considerable cost: Rolling back just a dozen key environmental rules will erase $254 billion in annual benefits for public health and environment, compared with only $39 billion in savings.
“This is an all-out assault on public health,” Symons said. He noted that the calculations are based on the EPA’s own data for each of the rules at stake.
Some of the greatest harm will come from reducing efforts to maintain safe air quality, such as rolling back standards for smog, soot, mercury and other harmful pollutants, according to a separate report released this week by the progressive public policy research group the Center for American Progress.
The closures by the Trump administration’s DOGE team include offices belonging to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, National Park Service, Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey.
Air pollution from burning fossil fuels costs each American an average of $2,500 per year in healthcare expenses — totaling $820 billion per year nationwide, the report says. That includes increased emergency room visits for cardiovascular events. Studies have found that particulate pollution known as PM 2.5, which is released by vehicles, industrial smokestacks and wildfires, can be attributed to as many as 200,000 excess deaths each year.
The estimated number of excess deaths and illnesses from the EPA’s actions are likely an undercount due to long-term outcomes, such as cancer, that are harder to quantify, Symons said.
But even short-term exposure to PM 2.5 can lead to adverse health outcomes such as higher rates of infant mortality, increased cardiovascular issues and childhood asthma.
“Americans deserve a government that is committed to protecting the right of all people to breathe clean air, to drink safe water and to live in healthy communities, and this administration is turning its back on that fundamental freedom,” said Cathleen Kelly, a senior fellow with the CAP and one of the report’s authors.
Yet the EPA and the Trump administration are plowing forward.
“We can protect the environment and grow the economy at the same time,” agency spokesman Michael Nye wrote in a statement. “In fact, the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in American history was a step in the right direction to ensure EPA adheres to the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment, and Power the Great American Comeback.”
EPA documents released by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works include a list of 400 grants targeted for elimination, including 62 in California.
The White House in recent weeks also announced plans to cancel more than $20 billion in climate awards funded by the Biden administration and the termination of at least 400 environment-related grants aimed at eliminating childhood lead poisoning, improving air quality and mitigating health risks from heat and wildfires, among others.
In addition, the EPA last week invited industrial polluters to request exemptions from compliance with Clean Air Act rules that limit emissions by simply sending an email — a move environmental groups decried as a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for large polluters in the country. The Colstrip power plant in Montana, considered one of the dirtiest coal plants in the nation, is among those who have applied for the pass.
It’s not only air quality that is at stake. Trump officials are hoping to claw back incentives from President Biden’s landmark climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, geared toward energy innovation and efficiency. According to the CAP report, doing so could increase household electricity costs by more than $110 in 2026, threaten more than $500 billion in planned economic investments and amount to 1 million fewer jobs in 2030.
The administration is similarly cutting funding for the Department of Energy and other agency programs working to reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels, including rumored cuts to a major nationwide initiative to develop hydrogen.
Those cuts could significantly set back the nation’s clean energy goals, as the four canceled “hydrogen hub” programs would have contributed to a cumulative 25-million metric ton reduction in carbon dioxide emissions each year, or roughly the amount of 5.5 million gas-powered cars.
Meanwhile, the White House also seeks to approve new liquefied natural gas terminals — a move that would add to U.S. reliance on fossil fuels, and could raise household electricity bills by $100 per month, the report found.
A major national effort to develop clean hydrogen energy is facing funding cuts — but only in Democratic states.
The EPA downplayed concerns about negative health and financial outcomes of its decisions.
“This is a very important change from the previous administration’s attempts to shut down American energy and make our citizens more reliant on foreign fossil fuels, resulting in worse environmental outcomes globally, billions in fresh funding to many of our nation’s adversaries at the expense to all Americans, and economic pain on those who can least afford it,” Nye said in his statement.
Experts noted that the effects of the sweeping environmental changes will not be felt equally, as low-income communities and communities of color experience disproportionate levels of air pollution, water quality issues and other climate hazards.
In particular, communities of color are 3.7 times more likely than white communities to live with high levels of air pollution, while Black and Latino Americans are exposed to 56% and 63% more soot pollution, respectively, than they produce.
Donald Trump’s EPA says coal plants and other industrial polluters can ask to bypass provisions of the Clean Air Act by sending the agency an email.
Still, the administration has shuttered its environmental justice arm and canceled grants that many of those communities were counting on to reduce pollution, prepare for worsening weather events and save money on electricity bills, the CAP report says.
Among the planned cancellations were funds earmarked for helping working-class communities remove lead from drinking water in homes and schools, increase tree canopies to help cool neighborhoods, and upgrade homes for energy efficiency — including a program that would help more than 900,000 households access affordable solar energy.
Kelly, of the CAP, said the combination of repealing environmental protections and canceling funding for new programs amounts to a “one-two punch” for the nation’s health and safety — putting lives at risk while also increasing energy and healthcare costs.
She added that the Trump administration’s plans to slash the EPA’s budget by as much as 65% will make it “impossible” for the agency to fulfill its mission of protecting Americans’ air and water.
“There’s really no case to be made for rolling back these lifesaving environmental protections,” she said.
