The first Trump administration repealed a number of health regulations, then Trump lost re-election and the Biden administration reinstated many of them, he said. Now they would not only repeal them, “but burn them down,” making it incredibly difficult for a future administration to step back in and re-regulate public health pollution, Hoover said. “It’s really quite damaging.”
EPA spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment about what science they use to support the claim that greenhouse gas emissions do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.
The climate and health benefits of carbon pollution standards “far outweigh the costs of compliance,” Biden’s EPA announced in June 2024. The agency pointed to a regulatory impact analysis that predicted a reduction in carbon pollution of 1.38 billion tons by 2047.
The entire regulatory framework is based on cost-benefit analyses, Hoover said. So far, however, the Trump administration has “greatly deemphasized, if not outright rejected” the quantification of public health benefits in regulations, he said.
In announcing the repeal of the power plant regulations, Trump’s EPA said only that the new rule would save $310 billion by releasing coal and natural gas, and its proposal to repeal “every remaining greenhouse gas standard for the energy sector” would save an additional $370 million in direct compliance costs. It also said the rules would save American families and businesses billions more.
However, independent studies have found that coal power results in higher utility costs for consumers. According to a cost-benefit analysis by the nonprofit group Resources for the Future, repealing increased emissions of toxic air pollutants would lead to an increase in health damage at a cost of up to $476 billion.
The two largest sources of climate emissions in the United States are the energy and transportation sectors, Hoover said. “And with today’s rollback of the regulations, the Trump administration has now completed its work to end climate regulations for both countries.”
Liza Gross is a reporter for Inside Climate News based in Northern California. She is the author of the Science Writers’ Investigative Reporting Handbook and a contributor to the Science Writers’ Handbook, both funded by the National Association of Science Writers’ Peggy Girshman Idea Grants. She has a long-standing interest in science, conservation, agriculture, public and environmental health, and justice, with a focus on the misuse of science for private gain. Before joining ICN, she worked as a part-time magazine editor for the open access journal PLOS Biology, as a reporter for the Food & Environment Reporting Network, and produced freelance stories for numerous national media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Discover, and Mother Jones. Her work has been recognized by the Association of Health Care Journalists, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Society of Professional Journalists NorCal, and the Association of Food Journalists.
This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.
