During President Trump’s first administration, I wrote many articles about his Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, overturning environmental regulations. The evidence was clear – you cut the rules and more people get sick and more people die.
When Trump was elected again, I wrote on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2025, that the slashing of regulations during his administration resulted in 22,000 excess deaths in 2019 alone, according to a study published by the British medical journal The Lancet.
I predicted Trump’s second term would be worse in my article “It’s Inauguration Day: The Foxes Are in the Henhouse.” I won a first place prize in the At-large Contest for the National Federation of Press Women for the article.
Unfortunately, my predictions are coming true in a even bigger way than what we saw during Trump’s first administration.
In total, since taking office again, Trump exempted 202 facilities in 39 states and Puerto Rico from clean-air regulations that were going into effect, according to an article in The New York Times. Some were among the country’s worst industrial polluters, including chemical manufacturers, copper smelters and coal-burning power plants. About 3.3 million people live within three miles of at least one affected facility.
The article, “How Trump Gave the Worst Polluters a Free Pass,” states that the exemptions represent the biggest presidential intervention in enforcement of the Clean Air Act in the half-century since President Richard M. Nixon signed the bedrock environmental law. And that is only one of the ways the Trump administration is dismantling a variety of federal environmental protections.
The article, which is worth reading, is behind a paywall. To read it, you can subscribe, set up an account and read a limited number of articles a month for free, or check with your local library to see if you can read articles through their website for no charge.
Community, health, and environmental groups are concerned about Trump’s exempting big polluters. They’re suing the Trump administration to stop an executive action that would unlawfully exempt 50 of the country’s most toxic chemical manufacturing plants from protections that guard people against dangerous cancer-causing air pollutants, including ethylene oxide and chloroprene.
“These unlawful presidential exemptions are one of the clearest examples of who matters to the Trump administration and who doesn’t,” Adam Kron, senior attorney with Earthjustice, said in a statement.
Kron said some of the wealthiest and most toxic chemical companies have received a free pass to put off long-needed controls and health protections, while community members in 13 states have to wait another two years while these facilities emit hundreds of tons of toxic and cancer-causing pollutants.”
The lawsuit challenges the Trump administration’s efforts to exempt companies from the EPA Hazardous Organic National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, the HON Rule, by delaying compliance by two years beyond the current 2026 and 2027 deadlines. These exemptions endanger the health of communities in 13 states, including Texas, Louisiana, Illinois, and Kentucky.
The EPA has estimated the updated protections in the 2024 HON Rule would cut toxic emissions from the chemical manufacturing industry by more than 6,200 tons per year and reduce air-toxics related cancer risks near these facilities by about 96 percent. It would have required stronger controls and monitoring around adjacent and affected communities for carcinogens and other toxic air pollutants.
The organizations challenging those exemptions are Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Concerned Citizens of St. John, RISE St. James Louisiana, Sierra Club, and Air Alliance Houston, which are represented by Earthjustice in the lawsuit; Natural Resources Defense Council; Environmental Defense Fund; Environmental Integrity Project; and Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform.
“The White House issued a get-out-of-jail-free card to the largest, most toxic chemical manufacturing facilities in the country and it must be revoked,” Jane Williams, chair of the Sierra Club National Clean Air Team, said in a statement. “This legal action is the first step in ensuring that these chemical plants, which routinely pollute over-burdened frontline communities, reduce their emissions.”
The map above is a subset that shows where the more than 500 exemption facilities are located throughout the country, whether they or a representative have requested or been granted a pollution exemption, and more. Map developed by Environmental Defense Fund and Environmental Integrity Project.
