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wildfires
Nearly Half of Americans Breathe Unsafe Air. Trump's Climate Rampage Is Set to Make It Worse
"Even as more people are breathing unhealthy air, the federal staff, programs, and policies that are supposed to be cleaning up pollution are facing rollbacks, restructuring, and funding challenges."
Apr 23, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump pledged following his 2024 election victory to deliver the "cleanest air" on the planet, but a report published Wednesday warns that his assault on the Environmental Protection Agency, efforts to roll back progress on clean energy, and attempts to boost the polluting coal industry are set to make an already bad situation worse.
The American Lung Association's (ALA) 2025 "State of the Air" report found that 156 million people in the U.S.—nearly half of the country's population—lived in areas with dangerous ozone or particle pollution between 2021 and 2023, the latest years from which data is available.
That's 25 million more people living in areas with unsafe air than the previous period examined by the ALA, which attributed the increase to "extreme heat and wildfires" made more frequent and intense by the global climate emergency. Trump appears bent on accelerating the crisis with his efforts to bolster the fossil fuel industry, the primary driver of planetary warming.
"In the three years covered by this report, individuals in the U.S. experienced the highest number of days when particle pollution reached 'unhealthy' (red days) and 'very unhealthy' (purple days) levels in the 26 years of reporting the 'State of the Air,'" the group said Wednesday. "This year's report includes data from the summer of 2023, when smoke from wildfires in Canada significantly impacted midwestern and eastern states, resulting in worse particle pollution."
Bakersfield-Delano, California, Fairbanks-College, Alaska, and Eugene-Springfield, Oregon ranked as the three U.S. areas impacted most by short-term particle pollution. Los Angeles-Long Beach, Visalia, and Bakersfield-Delano—all in California—and Phoenix-Mesa, Arizona were the areas hit hardest by ozone pollution, according to the ALA report.
"Families across the U.S. are dealing with the health impacts of air pollution every day, and extreme heat and wildfires are making it worse," said Harold Wimmer, the ALA's president and CEO. "Air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick, and leading to low birth weight in babies. This year's report shows the dramatic impact that air pollution has on a growing number of people."
"Even as more people are breathing unhealthy air, the federal staff, programs, and policies that are supposed to be cleaning up pollution are facing rollbacks, restructuring, and funding challenges," Wimmer continued, alluding to the Trump administration's slash-and-burn attacks on key government intiatives. "For decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has worked to ensure people have clean air to breathe, from providing trustworthy air quality forecasts to making sure polluters who violate the law clean up."
"Efforts to slash staff, funding, and programs at EPA," he warned, "are leaving families even more vulnerable to harmful air pollution. We need to protect the EPA."
The report comes after the Trump administration marked the eve of Earth Day by sending termination notices to more EPA employees, specifically taking aim at environmental justice divisions. The EPA is currently led by Trump appointee Lee Zeldin, who as a member of Congress repeatedly voted to weaken Clean Air Act standards.
The New York Timesreported Monday that under Zeldin's leadership, the EPA has "shut down its offices responsible for addressing the disproportionately high levels of pollution that poor communities face."
"Internal documents have outlined plans to eliminate the agency's scientific research arm, a move that experts have said will hinder clean water improvements, air quality monitoring, toxic site cleanups, and other parts of the agency's mission," the Times added.
Earlier this month, as Common Dreamsreported, Trump signed several executive orders aimed at promoting the coal industry, which the ALA report identifies as a key contributor to dangerous fine particulate matter air pollution.
"Coal kills," Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous said in response to the orders. "In the last two decades, nearly half a million Americans have died from exposure to coal pollution. Forcing coal plants to stay online will cost Americans more, get more people sick with respiratory and heart conditions, and lead to more premature deaths. Donald Trump's plan is as despicable as it is reckless and ill-conceived."
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40+ Groups: Trump Admin Push to Dismantle FEMA a 'Direct Threat' to Millions
"Now is the time for Congress to stand against unjustified attacks against FEMA and reject senseless cuts that will leave communities defenseless when a catastrophic disaster hits."
Apr 14, 2025
Over 40 organizations on Monday collectively rejected the Trump administration's threats to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency and called on Congress to defend FEMA, which helps state, local, tribal, and territorial governments prepare for and recover from disasters.
The coalition's letter to Congress came in response to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's declaration last month that "we're going to eliminate FEMA," which echoed President Donald Trump saying during a January trip to disaster zones in North Carolina and California that "I think we're gonna recommend that FEMA go away."
FEMA was an independent agency from its formation in 1979 until 2003, when it became part of the newly formed Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth co-chair a council Trump created to review FEMA, which is set to send the president recommendations by late July. The administration has already started terminating agency staff as part of a broader effort to gut the federal government.
"FEMA plays a vital role in stepping in to support state and local governments when hurricanes, wildfires, and floods overwhelm them."
"The administration's calls to transfer the burden of disaster preparedness and response obligations to state and local governments by gutting FEMA or eliminating the agency altogether are dangerously out of step with reality," argued the dozens of climate, consumer protection, disaster recovery, environmental justice, housing, resilience, and science groups.
"Climate-driven extreme weather is ravaging our communities," the coalition noted. "From the deadly back-to-back Hurricanes Milton and Helene last fall, to this year's devastating LA wildfires, and recent historic heavy rainfall and extensive flooding across Southern and Midwest states, American communities need resources to prepare for and recover from more frequent and severe extreme weather."
Last year—the hottest in human history—the U.S. endured 27 weather disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion, figures expected to rise as the Trump administration further enables the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry. The costliest event of 2024 was Helene, at $78.7 billion. The hurricane impacted several states but was particularly devastating for North Carolina.
Democratic North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein said last week that "I learned that FEMA refused our request to extend its 100% reimbursement period. I got this news while I was in Newland with families who lost their homes in the storm. The need in western North Carolina remains immense—people need debris removed, homes rebuilt, and roads restored."
"I am extremely disappointed and urge the president to reconsider FEMA's bad decision," Stein added on social media. "Six months later, the people of western North Carolina are working hard to get back on their feet; they need FEMA to help them get the job done."
The coalition warned Monday that "shifting the responsibility for disaster recovery to state governments—many of which are already under-resourced—is dangerous. States, especially smaller ones or those hit repeatedly by extreme weather, don't have the capacity and resources needed to respond to today's scale of climate-related disasters on their own."
"FEMA plays a vital role in stepping in to support state and local governments when hurricanes, wildfires, and floods overwhelm them, helping to repair roads and bridges, clear debris, and provide direct aid like food, shelter, and emergency assistance to survivors. The toll of increasingly severe climate disasters is stark," the coalition continued. "Without a well-resourced and functioning FEMA, communities will be left without the lifesaving resources they need when a major disaster hits."
The letter highlights the importance of FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC), a program that helps people "strengthen infrastructure and mitigate the impacts of disasters," and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which "is the main—and sometimes only—flood insurance option available to most homeowners in flood-prone areas."
"FEMA remains one of the few federal lifelines for communities trying to recover and rebuild from extreme weather, climate-related impacts, natural hazards, and other events," the letter concludes. "Now is the time for Congress to stand against unjustified attacks against FEMA and reject senseless cuts that will leave communities defenseless when a catastrophic disaster hits. Dismantling federal emergency preparedness programs is a direct threat to the safety, stability, and recovery of millions of Americans."
Signatories include the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, Consumer Federation of America, Friends of the Earth, Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance, Greenpeace USA, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, New York Communities for Change, Presente.org, Public Citizen, Stand.earth, Turtle Island Restoration Network, and Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Calls to gut FEMA in the age of climate change are not just unthinkable—they're a slap in the face to communities across the country dealing with the impacts from severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires," said Deanna Noel of Public Citizen's Climate Program in a statement. "The federal government's first responders to disasters are the employees from FEMA."
"Gutting the federal governments' emergency response essentially blindfolds officials from the suffering and frontline needs after major disasters strike," Noel added. "Our elected officials must stand up for their constituents, not bow to a dangerous agenda that abandons our communities when they are most vulnerable."
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The Fix Our Forests Act and the Politics of Wildfire
Logging interests and the U.S. Forest Service have a history of using the wildfire threat to create “emergency” authority to bypass environmental reviews and curtail judicial oversight.
Mar 18, 2025
When on January 23 of this year, California Senator Jarred Huffman stood on the House floor to voice his opposition to the Fix Our Forests Act, or FOFA,, he bitterly noted how the bill had been rushed to a vote without normal consultation.
The reason for the rush was obvious. Fires were raging in the suburbs of Los Angeles and FOFA’s proponents wanted to capitalize on the tragedy to pitch their bill, which in the name of wildfire prevention exempts vast acreage of backcountry logging from ordinary scientific and judicial oversight. The irony is that the LA fires had no connection with forests whatsoever. They began as grass and brush fires near populated areas, which, fanned by ferocious Santa Ana winds, quickly spread building to building, with disastrous results.
The irony widens when you consider that in 2024, Huffman, along with California Republican Jay Obernolte, introduced a bill that actually would help communities deal with fire. Called the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act, it proposed $1 billion per year to help communities harden homes and critical infrastructure while also creating defensive space around their perimeters. The bill was introduced this year yet again, six days after FOFA was rushed to a vote, but it hasn’t even been given a hearing by the House Natural Resources Committee. That committee is chaired by Oklahoma Republican Bruce Westerman, who, it turns out, is the chief sponsor of the Fix Our Forests Act.
Once again, it’s the same old formula: slash citizen oversight in the name of wildfire reduction.
Do you see the political convolutions at work here? A very real fire danger facing communities is used to promote a bill focused primarily on back country “fuels reduction,” far from such communities, while the Huffman-Obernolte bill, that focuses on the communities themselves, gets nowhere. The process not only puts millions of acres of mature and old-growth forests at risk of massive “mechanical treatments,” it leaves the immediate fire dangers faced by communities largely unaddressed.
This political formula is nothing new. Twenty two years ago, then-President George W. Bush signed into law the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, which also sought environmental restrictions for expanded logging under the pretext of preventing wildfires like those in California. The concern for conservationists was the same then as it is now—logging interests and the U.S. Forest Service using the wildfire threat to create “emergency” authority to bypass environmental reviews and curtail judicial oversight, providing easier access to mature and old-growth forests, while doing little in the way of home hardening and community protection.
Proponents of the Fix our Forests Act would counter that there are provisions within the bill that help coordinate grant applications for communities. That’s well and good, but falls far short of what the Huffman-Obernolte bill provides, which not only includes major funding to harden homes and critical infrastructure, but helps with early detection and evacuation planning and initiates Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience plans for insurance certification.
Further, there is a plethora of research that contradicts the notion that fuels reduction and forest thinning protects communities from wildfire. In fact, intensive forest management is shown to often increase fire severity. Meanwhile, the industry position that forest protection increases fire risk doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Indeed, years of mechanical treatments have done little to solve the problem, while doing tremendous ecological damage.
Now we have President Donald Trump’s all-caps Executive Order: “IMMEDIATE EXPANSION OF AMERICAN TIMBER PRODUCTION.” Once again, it’s the same old formula: slash citizen oversight in the name of wildfire reduction. The order calls for action to “reduce unnecessarily lengthy processes and associated costs related to administrative approvals for timber production, forest management, and wildfire risk reduction treatments,” while putting community safety up as the justification. From the first paragraph: “Furthermore, as recent disasters demonstrate, forest management and wildfire risk reduction projects can save American lives and communities.” Only they don’t. The only things shown to save lives and communities are the types of actions put forth by the Community Protections and Wildfire Resilience act.
The Democratic Party has a history of protecting public lands and a constituency that expects such protection. A similar thing can be said of certain moderate Republicans, where a courageous spirit prevails when it comes to environmental protection. If there ever was a time to remember that tradition and that spirit, it would be now.
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