The Trump administration is committing so many atrocities I could write a dozen articles every day about them: burning expired food aid for starving people in other countries; deporting people aggressively who are in the United States legally; eliminating the Department of Education; firing inspectors general who prevent and detect waste, fraud, and abuse in their agencies; eliminating DEI programs; redirecting taxpayer money to private schools; making cuts to Head Start; cutting SNAP benefits over the next decade; abandoning consumer protection regulations; sending troops to cities who oppose his immigration policies; and much more.
I could go on and on. The Trump administration is cruel, vindictive, corrupt, and criminal.
However, there’s one action that will directly increase illness and death in the United States. Over the years I’ve written about environmental regulations and how they reduce health problems and even death. Now the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, is abandoning regulations and important research.
The EPA is eliminating its Office of Research and Development, Lee Zeldin, EPA director announced Friday. The office played a critical role in improving air quality, reducing life-threatening chemicals in the air and water, and protecting Americans from illnesses and preventable deaths.
Under the Trump administration, the EPA’s workforce has shrunk by nearly a quarter.
“Without the research produced by the Office of Research and Development and with the inexperienced Lee Zeldin at its helm, the EPA is being reduced to a puppet agency that destroys the environment and threatens our public health at the will of Donald Trump,” Patrick Drupp, climate policy director for the Sierra Club, an environmental organization, said in a statement.
Drupp said it’s completely heartless that Lee Zeldin would gut the department whose work has saved countless lives and prevented Americans across the country from illnesses linked to air and water pollution.
“This is just another step to further this administration’s agenda to coddle the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our lives,” he said.
In his announcement, Zeldin said the agency is "forging ahead with the creation of the new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions, which will allow EPA to prioritize research and science more than ever before and put it at the forefront of rulemakings and technical assistance to states."
I wonder if this new office will feature alternative science presented by the oil, gas, and coal industries? Probably. One of the most often used tactic of the Trump administration is lying.
An article in The New York Times Tuesday said air pollution may be one of the reasons for the worldwide increase of 10 to 25 percent for lung cancers that now occur in people who've never smoked.
In the past, the EPA has estimated how much illness and death would be prevented by proposed regulations such as shutting down coal plants. Without real research and meaningful regulations, illnesses and death from air and water pollution will mount.
Eliminating the EPA Office of Research and Development under the guise of cost savings is both misleading and dangerous.
