As America faces increasing health threats from wildfire smoke, summer heat waves and rising cases of asthma and other respiratory illnesses, the last thing we need is to reverse laws that protect U.S. air quality.
Yet, that’s precisely what the Trump administration intends to do by proposing a repeal of a central scientific finding that serves as the basis for the Clean Air Act — legislation that has saved millions of American lives and been responsible for monumental advancements both to our environment and public health.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced last month the agency plans to end a long-held “endangerment finding” that asserts carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases present a risk to human health.
If that happens, it will neutralize the federal government’s ability to combat climate change and enforce laws intended to protect America’s wellbeing.
One of those laws is the Clean Air Act. Enacted in 1970, it has been one of the most successful public health policies in U.S. history.
It’s credited with reducing six of the most common air pollutants in the U.S. by nearly 80 percent while saving over 230,000 early deaths and avoiding over 120,000 emergency room visits every year. It has reduced chronic bronchitis, infant mortality and prevented millions of cases of asthma exacerbation as well.
These statistics aren’t conjecture: They’re sourced directly from the EPA’s own website, the same agency now leading the charge to turn the clock back on these remarkable achievements.
Zeldin’s announcement claims that the reversal of the endangerment finding will “undo the underpinning of $1 trillion in costly regulations.” But the positive U.S. economic impact from the Clean Air Act alone far exceeds this figure.
By reducing hospital visits, sick days and treatment of costly respiratory-related disease, the EPA estimates the Clean Air Act has created $2 trillion in U.S. economic benefit as of 2020 — twice the amount Zeldin asserts the endangerment finding’s repeal would create.
Further, clean energy has proven itself to be a source of strong job creation. The Department of Energy found that jobs in renewable energy grew more than twice as fast as the vibrant 2023 U.S labor market.
And the science couldn’t be clearer: Clean air is critical to public health.
“Decades of research have shown that air pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter increase the amount and seriousness of lung and heart disease and other health problems,” the EPA states.
Worse, those pollutants are disproportionately burdened by communities of color. A 2024 Milken Institute of Public Health study found that marginalized communities have eight times the number of pediatric asthma cases and a 30 percent higher chance of dying early from pollution exposure.
That same study attributed this inequality to the close proximity many minority communities share with industrial manufacturing facilities. Imagine what those numbers would be if the endangerment finding is reversed and the U.S. can no longer enforce Clean Air Act provisions.
Zeldin referred to the EPA action as “driving a dagger into the heart of the climate change religion,” and that it would be “the largest deregulatory action in the history of America.”
But doing so will only cause greater sickness in America and inundate an already stressed U.S. health care system. Increased exposure to air pollution will result in higher numbers of emergency room visits, increased rates of chronic illness and heightened health care costs.
The medical and environmental advocacy community agree greater exposure to carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas is a bad idea.
Groups such as the American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, American Thoracic Society, World Wildlife Fund, along with nursing organizations and medical societies all stand in strong opposition to the EPA’s proposed action.
Zeldin’s proposal follows another questionable deregulatory move by the EPA in recent weeks to reintroduce dicamba, a weed killer used on soybeans and cotton.
Use of the pesticide was halted by a federal court last year. A 2020 study in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that exposure to dicamba was reportedly “linked to some cancers, including liver cancer and a type of leukemia affecting the blood and bone marrow.”
But the EPA has argued it “has not identified any human health or dietary risks of concern.”
The U.S. government’s job is to protect America’s citizens. The Clean Air Act has saved millions of lives, safeguarded our skies and proven that environmental laws and economic progress can peacefully coexist.
Repealing the endangerment finding will set America on a dangerous path and put the health and welfare of every American at risk.
Lyndon Haviland, DrPH, MPH, is a distinguished scholar at the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy.
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