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lee zeldin
In 'Latest Pro-Polluter Move,' Trump EPA to End Emissions Data Collection
"EPA cannot avoid the climate crisis by simply burying its head in the sand as it baselessly cuts off its main source of greenhouse gas emissions data," said one Sierra Club campaigner.
Sep 12, 2025
Citing US President Donald Trump's anti-climate executive actions, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Friday unveiled a proposal to end a program that requires power plants, refineries, landfills, and more to report their emissions.
While Zeldin claimed that "the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape that does nothing to improve air quality," experts and climate advocates emphasized the importance of the data collection, which began in 2010.
"President Trump promised Americans would have the cleanest air on Earth, but once again, Trump's EPA is taking actions that move us further from that goal," Joseph Goffman, who led the EPA Office of Air and Radiation during the Biden administration, said in a statement from the Environmental Protection Network, a group for former agency staff.
"Cutting the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program blinds Americans to the facts about climate pollution. Without it, policymakers, businesses, and communities cannot make sound decisions about how to cut emissions and protect public health," he explained.
As The New York Times reported:
For the past 15 years, the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program has collected data from about 8,000 of the country's largest industrial facilities. That information has helped guide numerous decisions on federal policy and has been shared with the United Nations, which has required developed countries to submit tallies of their emissions.
In addition, private companies often rely on the program's data to demonstrate to investors that their efforts to cut emissions are working. And communities often use it to determine whether local facilities are releasing air pollution that threatens public health.
"By hiding this information from the public, Administrator Zeldin is denying Americans the ability to see the damaging results of his actions on climate pollution, air quality, and public health," Goffman said. "It's a further addition to the deliberate blockade against future action on climate change—and yet another example of the administration putting polluters before people's health."
Sierra Club's director of climate policy and advocacy, Patrick Drupp, stressed Friday that "EPA cannot avoid the climate crisis by simply burying its head in the sand as it baselessly cuts off its main source of greenhouse gas emissions data."
"The agency has provided no defensible reason to cancel the program; this is nothing more than EPA's latest action to deny the reality of climate change and do everything it can to put the fossil fuel industry and corporate polluters before people," he added. "The Sierra Club will oppose this proposal every step of the way.”
Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, similarly said that "the Trump administration's latest pro-polluter move to eliminate the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is just another brazen step in their Polluters First agenda."
Responding to the administration's claim that the proposal would save businesses up to $2.4 billion in regulatory costs, Alt said that "under the guise of saving Americans money, this is an attempt on the part of Trump, Lee Zeldin, and their polluter buddies to hide the ball and avoid responsibility for the deadly, dangerous, and expensive pollution they produce."
"If they succeed, the nation's biggest polluters will spew climate-wrecking pollution without accountability," she warned. "The idea that tracking pollution does 'nothing to improve air quality' is absurd," she added. "If you don't measure it, you can't manage it. Hiding information and allowing fossil fuel companies to avoid accountability are the true goals of this rule."
The Trump admin is now proposing to kill the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which since 2010 has required 8,000+ coal plants, refineries, and factories to report their climate pollution.Without it, polluters get a free pass.No reporting = no accountability.
— Climate Action Now (@climateactapp.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 7:04 PM
BlueGreen Alliance executive director Jason Walsh declared that "the Trump administration continues to prove it does not care about the American people and their basic right to breathe clean air. This flies in the face of the EPA's core mission—to protect the environment and public health."
"The proposal is wildly unpopular with even industry groups speaking against it because they know the value of having this emissions data available," he noted. "Everybody in this country deserves to know the air quality in their community and how their lives can be affected when they live near high-emitting facilities."
“Knowledge is power and—in this case—health," he concluded. "The administration shouldn't be keeping people in the dark about the air they and their neighbors are breathing."
This proposal from Zeldin came a day after the EPA moved to reverse rules protecting people from unsafe levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called "forever chemicals," in US drinking water, provoking similar criticism. Earthjustice attorney Katherine O'Brien said that his PFAS decision "prioritizes chemical industry profits and utility companies' bottom line over the health of children and families across the country."
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Trump EPA Seeks to Reverse Rules Protecting Drinking Water From Carcinogenic 'Forever Chemicals'
One environmental attorney said that the EPA proposal "prioritizes chemical industry profits and utility companies' bottom line over the health of children and families across the country."
Sep 12, 2025
Public health and environment defenders on Friday condemned the Trump administration's announcement that it will no longer uphold Environmental Protection Agency rules that protect people from unsafe levels of so-called "forever chemicals" in the nation's drinking water.
In addition to no longer defending rules meant to protect people from dangerous quantities of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—called forever chemicals because they do not biodegrade and accumulate in the human body—the EPA is asking a federal court to toss out current limits that protect drinking water from four types of PFAS: PFNA, PFHxS, GenX, and PFBS.
The EPA first announced its intent to roll back limits on the four chemicals in May, while vowing to retain maximum limits for two other types of PFAS. The agency said the move is meant to “provide regulatory flexibility and holistically address these contaminants in drinking water.”
However, critics accuse the EPA and Administrator Lee Zeldin—a former Republican congressman from New York with an abysmal 14% lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters—of trying to circumvent the Safe Drinking Water Act's robust anti-backsliding provision, which bars the EPA from rolling back any established drinking water standard.
"In essence, EPA is asking the court to do what EPA itself is not allowed to do," Earthjustice said in a statement.
"Administrator Zeldin promised to protect the American people from PFAS-contaminated drinking water, but he’s doing the opposite,” Earthjustice attorney Katherine O'Brien alleged. “Zeldin’s plan to delay and roll back the first national limits on these forever chemicals prioritizes chemical industry profits and utility companies’ bottom line over the health of children and families across the country."
Jared Thompson, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said that "the EPA’s request to jettison rules intended to keep drinking water safe from toxic PFAS forever chemicals is an attempted end run around the protections that Congress placed in the Safe Drinking Water Act."
"It is also alarming, given what we know about the health harms caused by exposure to these chemicals," Thompson added. "No one wants to drink PFAS. We will continue to defend these commonsense, lawfully enacted standards in court."
PFAS have myriad uses, from nonstick cookware to waterproof clothing to firefighting foam. Increasing use of forever chemicals has resulted in the detection of PFAS in the blood of nearly every person in the United States and around the world.
Approximately half of the U.S. population is drinking PFAS-contaminated water, “including as many as 105 million whose water violates the new standards,” according to the NRDC, which added that “the EPA has known for decades that PFAS endangers human health, including kidney and testicular cancer, liver damage, and harm to the nervous and reproductive systems.”
Betsy Southerland, a former director of the Office of Science and Technology in the EPA's Office of Water, said in a statement Friday:
The impact of these chemicals is clear. We know that this is significant for pregnant women who are drinking water contaminated with PFAS, because it can cause low birth weight in children. We know children have developmental effects from being exposed to it. We know there’s an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease and cancer with these chemicals.
Two of the four chemicals targeted in this motion are the ones that we expect to be the most prevalent, and only increasing contamination in the future. With this rollback, those standards would be gone.
Responding to Thursday's developments, Environmental Advocates NY director of clean water Rob Hayes said that "the EPA’s announcement is a big win for corporate polluters and an enormous loss for New York families."
"Administrator Zeldin wants to strip clean water protections away from millions of New Yorkers, leaving them at risk of exposure to toxic PFAS chemicals every time they turn on the tap," he added. "New Yorkers will pay the price of this disastrous plan through medical bills—and deaths—tied to kidney cancer, thyroid disease, and other harmful illnesses linked to PFAS."
While Trump administration officials including Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have claimed they want to "make America healthy again" by ending PFAS use, the EPA is apparently moving in the opposite direction. Between April and June of this year, the agency sought approval of four new pesticides considered PFAS under a definition backed by experts.
“What we’re seeing right now is the new generation of pesticides, and it’s genuinely frightening,” Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Civil Eats earlier this week. “At a time when most industries are transitioning away from PFAS, the pesticide industry is doubling down. They’re firmly in the business of selling PFAS.”
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The Trump Admin's Climate Denial Proposal Contradicts Science, Law, and Public Opinion
The world’s highest court recently affirmed that climate action is a legal duty and that governments must regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Aug 24, 2025
When US Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, Administrator Lee Zeldin announced last month his official proposal to rescind the agency’s foundational determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare, he insinuated that previous administrations (under former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden) had “twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science” in order to achieve their regulatory agendas. And the regulations of these planet-warming emissions, not the emissions themselves like carbon dioxide, are “the real threat to Americans’ livelihoods,” Zeldin suggested.
EPA’s greenhouse gas endangerment finding, established in 2009, serves as the basis of its legal obligation under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from sources such as motor vehicles and power plants. The finding was based on an extensive review of the scientific record, which has gotten even more robust over the last 16 years, and has survived all legal challenges brought against it.
The Trump administration’s move to do away with the finding contradicts the overwhelming scientific evidence that greenhouse gas emissions are driving dangerous climate change impacts. There are also arguments to be made that it is unlawful. And, it goes against the pleas of the hundreds of Americans who have spoken out this week in opposition to Zeldin’s sweeping deregulatory proposal. In other words, contrary to Zeldin’s assertion, it is actually the Trump administration that is twisting or ignoring the law and public sentiment and warping science.
Let’s start with the science. The world’s premier body of climate scientists—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—has stated that it is “unequivocal” that human activities are warming the planet and causing rapid and widespread changes, such as more extreme weather, that are unprecedented over millennia. The US Fifth National Climate Assessment report observes that “harmful impacts from more frequent and severe extremes are increasing across the country” and notes that “climate changes are making it harder to maintain safe homes and healthy families; reliable public services; a sustainable economy; thriving ecosystems, cultures, and traditions; and strong communities.” These are authoritative statements from reports involving hundreds of scientists and extensive peer review.
What the Trump administration is doing with repealing the endangerment finding and all GHG regulations that flow from it, therefore, could be a violation of international law under the ICJ’s recent advisory opinion.
But to support its proposal to rescind the endangerment finding, Trump’s EPA relies instead on a new report issued by the Department of Energy (DOE) that rejects the scientific consensus on climate change and claims that GHG emissions and climate impacts are not harmful. The report, hastily written by five climate skeptics over a period of just two months, recycles many climate denialist talking points and, according to one analysis, includes over 100 false or misleading statements. As science historian Naomi Oreskes puts it, “Climate denial is now the official policy of the US government.”
“What the Trump administration and the Department of Energy did is pull together this small hand-picked group of people to work in secret to write this report that questions that mountain of scientific evidence that climate change is harming people,” said Erin Murphy, a senior attorney at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
“In and of itself, the conclusions of that report are inaccurate and inconsistent with the vast, vast majority of scientific findings and the consensus across the scientific community,” she added. “But also, the report is inconsistent with federal law.”
EDF and the Union of Concerned Scientists have filed a lawsuit against the DOE, the EPA, and the group of five climate skeptics arguing that the secretive manner in which the report was pulled together violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which mandates transparency and opportunities for public engagement in government advisory proceedings.
The report has not gone through formal peer review, and although it is currently open to public comment, the time window for commenting is limited to just 30 days (closing on September 2) during a month when many people take vacations or might otherwise be unavailable. And until this week, none of the hundreds of comments that have come in were publicly visible. That hiding of the comments, Murphy said, “further underscores the government’s efforts to do this in secret.”
The lawsuit aims to block the Trump administration from using this report in its efforts to rescind the endangerment finding.
It was clear to me that the speakers—from environmental groups, the medical community and scientists to municipal and state governments and private citizens—were overwhelmingly united in their disapproval of the nixing of EPA’s foundational finding that GHG emissions endanger our health and welfare.
Even if EPA plows ahead and finalizes its move to eliminate the finding, that action will certainly be challenged in court. It remains to be seen what legal arguments environmental groups and other challengers will put forth.
One thing that is clear is that climate action is no longer optional, but rather a legal obligation, as several international courts have affirmed in recent landmark climate change advisory opinions. The International Court of Justice, considered the world’s highest court, delivered its opinion on July 23. The ICJ clarified that states have obligations under multiple sources of international law to reduce emissions and that governments must regulate the emissions of private actors. The customary law duty to prevent significant environmental harm to the climate system, which applies to all countries regardless of whether they are parties to specific treaties, includes putting in place “regulatory mitigation mechanisms” to reduce GHG emissions, the court said. Such rules “must regulate the conduct of public and private operators.” According to the court, failure to act in good faith to regulate emissions could be considered an unlawful act.
What the Trump administration is doing with repealing the endangerment finding and all GHG regulations that flow from it, therefore, could be a violation of international law under the ICJ’s recent advisory opinion. And while the opinion itself is nonbinding, it may be invoked in domestic court proceedings around the world, including in the US.
Zeldin’s endangerment finding rescission also seems to be untenable in the court of public opinion. “In repealing the endangerment finding, the Trump administration is stepping far out of line with public opinion, as voters across partisanship are in strong agreement that greenhouse gas emissions are a threat to public health and should be regulated,” Data for Progress says in reference to new poll results it released last week.
EPA held virtual public hearings last week on its proposal, and almost everyone who testified spoke in opposition to eliminating the endangerment finding. Out of the roughly 200 people who spoke on Tuesday, fewer than 10 voiced support for EPA’s rollback, Inside Climate News reports. I tuned into some of the hearings on Wednesday and Thursday, and it was clear to me that the speakers—from environmental groups, the medical community and scientists to municipal and state governments and private citizens—were overwhelmingly united in their disapproval of the nixing of EPA’s foundational finding that GHG emissions endanger our health and welfare.
“The EPA has a responsibility to regulate greenhouse gases for what they are—a clear, present, and growing threat to the health and well-being of every American,” Kim Cobb, a climate scientist, told the EPA panel in concluding her testimony.
Tiffany Covarrubias Lyttle, a registered nurse and mother of seven children, said during her testimony that the father of her children recently passed away from cancer, specially an environmentally triggered adenocarcinoma.
“Repealing environmental protections and rescinding [the endangerment] finding will make stories like mine more common,” Lyttle said. “Clean air, clean water, and a stable climate aren’t just environmental issues. They are in fact a matter of life and death.”
This piece was originally published on Dana Drugmand’s Substack One Earth Now on August 21, 2025.
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