On March 12, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced more than 30 deregulatory actions the agency is taking, including steps to roll back rules that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and farm pollution, and to eliminate environmental justice efforts.
In their last evaluation of the climate crisis, the world’s top scientists found climate change is already making it harder for farmers to produce food—and that challenges including extreme heat, droughts, and destructive weather events will get worse without rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Zeldin’s actions will move the EPA off that path significantly with a reconsideration of what is called the “endangerment finding,” a scientific decision the agency made determining greenhouse gases endanger public health, which underpins the agency’s other climate rules and regulations. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families,” Zeldin said in a statement.
Another stop in Zeldin’s plan is to once again review a rule that determines which bodies of water are subject to restrictions on runoff from farms. Called Waters of the U.S., or “WOTUS,” the rule has been in flux for decades, with every administration changing it and the Supreme Court already weighing in. It has been a key issue for the American Farm Bureau Federation, and House Agriculture Committee Chair G.T. Thompson thanked Zeldin “for listening to America’s farmers and delivering much needed relief to our rural communities.”
And Zeldin officially ended all of EPA’s office environmental justice work, shutting down offices around the country. Some environmental justice programming at EPA focused on communities disproportionately affected by air and water pollution from the food system. “By shutting down environmental justice, Trump’s EPA is turning its back on protecting clean air and safe drinking water for every American, regardless of where they live or who they voted for,” said Michelle Roos, Executive Director at the Environmental Protection Network, in a statement. (Link to this post.)
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