EPA

Trump’s Environmental Massacre

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Original article by Derrick Z. Jackson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

The pictured oil refinery, owned by Exxon Mobil, is the second largest in the country on 28th February 2020 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States.  (Photo by Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images)

The EPA’s decision to erase the value of lives lost or saved by regulations is a horror beyond the pale. It opens the door for government-sanctioned death with a baked-in cover-up.

Last March, I interviewed staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 5 headquarters in Chicago who were horrified by the Trump administration’s staff and funding cuts, which notably included eliminating environmental justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

The threat of those cuts was so severe that Brian Kelly, an on-site emergency coordinator based in Michigan, predicted: “People will die. There will be additional deaths if we roll back these protections.”

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How many additional deaths? The Trump EPA will not say. As part of President Donald Trump’s crusade to destroy federal science and roll back environmental safeguards, his EPA announced recently that it will no longer consider the monetary value of saving lives by regulating fine particulate matter, commonly called soot, smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM 2.5) and ozone smog from vehicles, fossil-fuel-burning power plants, and other polluting industries.

In other words, the agency intends to conduct cost-benefit analyses by only considering the cost.

We Need Stronger Pollution Regs

The data documenting soot’s deadly damage even with environmental rules in place is voluminous, much coming from the federal government itself, suggesting that we need stronger regulations, not weaker ones.

A 1997 EPA report found the first 20 years of the 1970 Clean Air Act were so effective that 205,000 premature deaths were avoided from all air pollution sources in 1990. The same report concluded that the 1990 amendments to the law would save more than 230,000 lives a year by 2020 and prevent 2.4 million asthma attacks.

By disbanding DEI and environmental justice programs, the Trump administration is ensuring that communities of color are collateral damage in sucking the Earth dry of oil and gas and mining for the last lump of coal.

Even so, air pollution remains mortally high in a nation that is now the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas and stubbornly prioritizes individually owned vehicles over public transportation. A 2021 study funded by the EPA and published in the journal Science Advances found that PM 2.5 alone still accounts for 85,000 to 200,000 excess deaths a year.

The conclusions of nongovernmental studies echo the EPA’s own findings. A 2022 University of Wisconsin study, for example, estimated that if the United States eliminated all fine particulate, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide emissions from electricity generation, vehicles, factories, and buildings, 53,200 premature deaths a year could be prevented, providing $600 billion in health benefits from avoided illness and mortality.

Drill Baby Drill’s Collateral Damage

The Trump EPA’s recent announcement is just another of a string of nonsensical—and dangerous—moves by the agency. They include abandoning the Paris Climate Accord and killing the agency’s 2009 “endangerment finding” determining that carbon pollution threatens human health, which the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) estimates will cut short the lives of as many as 58,000 people over the next 30 years due to additional pollution.

Taken together, the Trump administration’s assault on public health has the potential of triggering an environmental massacre, particularly among the most vulnerable Americans.

Because of our nation’s history of housing discrimination, communities of color, regardless of income, face more than twice the risk of exposure to PM 2.5 than white communities. According to the 2021 Sciences Advances study, this “phenomenon is systemic, holding for nearly all major sectors, as well as across states and urban and rural areas, income levels, and exposure levels…. Targeting locally important sources for mitigation could be one way to counter this persistence.”

By disbanding DEI and environmental justice programs, the Trump administration is ensuring that communities of color are collateral damage in sucking the Earth dry of oil and gas and mining for the last lump of coal. An August 2025 Science Advances study found that the life cycle of oil and gas extraction, storage, transporting, refining, and combustion results in 91,000 annual premature deaths due to exposure to PM 2.5, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone. It found that, with rare exception, “Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Native American groups experience the worst exposures and burdens for all life-cycle stages and pollutants.” A 2023 New England Journal of Medicine study, meanwhile, concluded that reducing PM 2.5 pollution alone would disproportionately benefit Blacks at all income levels as well as low-income whites.

EPA Now Stands for Every Polluter’s Ally

Without a single fact to back up its claim, the Trump EPA—led by the fossil fuel industry-friendly Lee Zeldin—stated it did away with calculating lives saved because prior estimates were done with “false precision and confidence.” In fact, the agency is now simply repeating the talking points of the oil and gas industry and the US Chamber of Commerce, which has a long history of lobbying Congress to resist climate legislation and filing endless amicus briefs on behalf of polluters to counter environmental lawsuits.

In 2018, during the first the Trump administration, the chamber asserted—also with no evidence—that previous to the Trump EPA, the agency “historically misinformed and misled the public by using inconsistent and opaque analytical and communication methods regarding costs and benefits.”

That same year, the Trump EPA offered a revealing nugget of information that was hardly opaque. It admitted that its effort to kill the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which would have reined in power plant carbon pollution, would result in in as many as 1,400 premature deaths a year by 2030, and thousands more annual cases of respiratory diseases. At the time, Trump was also trying to roll back Obama-era clean air vehicle standards that were projected to save nearly 40,000 lives a year by 2030.

In its last year in office, the Biden administration proposed tightening PM 2.5 standards, estimating that it could prevent as many as 4,500 premature deaths in 2032 and lead to $46 billion in health benefits in 2032.

There is not a single word about protecting lives or lowering healthcare costs in the EPA’s February 12 press release announcing its repeal of the endangerment finding nor in its February 20 press release hailing the repeal of tighter mercury and air toxics standards enacted by the Biden administration. Instead, Zeldin claimed—without proof—that the air pollution rules would have “destroyed reliable American energy” and revoking the endangerment finding would save Americans more than $1.3 trillion, including an average cost savings of more than $2,400 on a new vehicle.

While Zeldin is trying to use the greater availability of cheaper, gas-guzzling cars as a lure to seduce the public to look the other way on environmental regulations, the pollution they emit will smoke the nation. EDF estimates that higher-polluting vehicles could, by 2055:

  • Cost US drivers as much as $1.4 trillion in increased fuel costs;
  • Emit carbon pollution that will intensify climate change-related extreme weather events, costing $1.5 trillion to $4.2 trillion; and
  • Increase respiratory and heart disease, as well as the number of premature deaths, costing $170 billion to $500 billion.

None of that mattered to the first Trump administration, which admitted its regulatory rollbacks could kill people. When the second Trump administration barreled into office with its cutbacks and deep-sixing of environmental justice and DEI programs, staffers in the EPA Chicago Region 5 office feared the worst. They included Kayla Butler, a Superfund community involvement coordinator. The stories her team collects in the field of people living with toxic horrors are precisely the stories she said the Trump administration is “trying to erase.”

The EPA’s decision to erase the value of lives lost or saved by regulations is a horror beyond the pale. It opens the door for government-sanctioned death with a baked-in cover-up. With the death toll from air pollution still so high, the Trump EPA is burying the data with the bodies, so we will never know the cause.

This article first appeared at the Money Trail blog and is reposted here at Common Dreams with permission.

Original article by Derrick Z. Jackson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
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Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Continue ReadingTrump’s Environmental Massacre

Trump’s EPA decides climate change doesn’t endanger public health – the evidence says otherwise

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Rising global temperatures are increasing the risk of heat stroke on hot days, among many other human harms. Ronda Churchill/AFP via Getty Images

Jonathan Levy, Boston University; Howard Frumkin, University of Washington; Jonathan Patz, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Vijay Limaye, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Trump administration took a major step in its efforts to unravel America’s climate policies on Feb. 12, 2026, when it moved to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding – a formal determination that six greenhouse gases that drive climate change, including carbon dioxide and methane from burning fossil fuels, endanger public health and welfare.

But the administration’s arguments in dismissing the health risks of climate change are not only factually wrong, they’re deeply dangerous to Americans’ health and safety.

As physicians, epidemiologists and environmental health scientists, we’ve seen growing evidence of the connections between climate change and harm to people’s health. Here’s a look at the health risks everyone face from climate change.

Health risks and outcomes related to climate change.
Health risks and outcomes related to climate change. World Health Organization

Extreme heat

Greenhouse gases from vehicles, power plants and other sources accumulate in the atmosphere, trapping heat and holding it close to Earth’s surface like a blanket. Too much of it causes global temperatures to rise, leaving more people exposed to dangerous heat more often.

Most people who get minor heat illnesses will recover, but more extreme exposure, especially without enough hydration and a way to cool off, can be fatal. People who work outside, are elderly or have underlying illnesses such as heart, lung or kidney diseases are often at the greatest risk.

Heat deaths have been rising globally, up 23% from the 1990s to the 2010s, when the average year saw more than half a million heat-related deaths. Here in the U.S., the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome killed hundreds of people.

Climate scientists predict that with advancing climate change, many areas of the world, including U.S. cities such as Miami, Houston, Phoenix and Las Vegas, will confront many more days each year hot enough to threaten human survival.

Extreme weather

Warmer air holds more moisture, so climate change brings increasing rainfall and storm intensity and worsening flooding, as many U.S. communities have experienced in recent years. Warmer ocean water also fuels more powerful hurricanes.

Increased flooding carries health risks, including drownings, injuries and water contamination from human pathogens and toxic chemicals. People cleaning out flooded homes also face risks from mold exposure, injuries and mental distress.

A man carries boxes out of a house that flooded up to its second story.
Flooding from hurricanes and other extreme storms can put people at risk of injuries during the cleanup while also triggering dangerous mold growth on wet wallboard, carpets and fabric. This home flooded up to its second flood during Hurricane Irma in 2017. Sean Rayford/Getty Images

Climate change also worsens droughts, disrupting food supplies and causing respiratory illness from dust. Rising temperatures and aridity dry out forests and grasslands, making them a setup for wildfires.

Air pollution

Wildfires, along with other climate effects, are worsening air quality around the country.

Wildfire smoke is a toxic soup of microscopic particles (known as fine particulate matter, or PM2.5) that can penetrate deep in the lungs and hazardous compounds such as lead, formaldehyde and dioxins generated when homes, cars and other materials burn at high temperatures. Smoke plumes can travel thousands of miles downwind and trigger heart attacks and elevate lung cancer risks, among other harms.

Meanwhile, warmer conditions favor the formation of ground-level ozone, a heart and lung irritant. Burning of fossil fuels also generates dangerous air pollutants that cause a long list of health problems, including heart attacks, strokes, asthma flare-ups and lung cancer.

Infectious diseases

Because they are cold-blooded organisms, insects are directly influenced by temperature. So with rising temperatures, mosquito biting rates rise as well. Warming also accelerates the development of disease agents that mosquitoes transmit.

Mosquito-borne dengue fever has turned up in Florida, Texas, Hawaii, Arizona and California. New York state just saw its first locally acquired case of chikungunya virus, also transmitted by mosquitoes.

A world map shows where mosquitos are most likely to transmit the dengue virus
As global temperatures rise, regions are becoming more suitable for mosquitoes to transmit dengue virus. The map shows a suitability scale, with red areas already suitable for dengue transmissions and yellow areas becoming more suitable. Taishi Nakase, et al., 2022, CC BY

And it’s not just insect-borne infections. Warmer temperatures increase diarrhea and foodborne illness from Vibrio cholerae and other bacteria and heavy rainfall increases sewage-contaminated stormwater overflows into lakes and streams. At the other water extreme, drought in the desert Southwest increases the risk of coccidioidomycosis, a fungal infection known as valley fever.

Other impacts

Climate change threatens health in numerous other ways. Longer pollen seasons increase allergen exposures. Lower crop yields reduce access to nutritious foods.

Mental health also suffers, with anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress following disasters, and increased rates of violent crime and suicide tied to high-temperature days.

A older man holds a door for a woman at a cooling center.
New York and many other cities now open cooling centers during heat waves to help residents, particularly older adults who might not have air conditioning at home, stay safe during the hottest parts of the day. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

Young children, older adults, pregnant women and people with preexisting medical conditions are among the highest-risk groups. Lower-income people also face greater risk because of higher rates of chronic disease, higher exposures to climate hazards and fewer resources for protection, medical care and recovery from disasters.

Policy-based evidence-making

The evidence linking climate change with health has grown considerably since 2009. Today, it is incontrovertible.

Studies show that heat, air pollution, disease spread and food insecurity linked to climate change are worsening and costing millions of lives around the world each year. This evidence also aligns with Americans’ lived experiences. Anybody who has fallen ill during a heat wave, struggled while breathing wildfire smoke or been injured cleaning up from a hurricane knows that climate change can threaten human health.

Yet the Trump administration is willfully ignoring this evidence in proclaiming that climate change does not endanger health.

Its move to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding, which underpins many climate regulations, fits with a broader set of policy measures, including cutting support for renewable energy and subsidizing fossil fuel industries that endanger public health. In addition to rescinding the endangerment finding, the Trump administration also moved to roll back emissions limits on vehicles – the leading source of U.S. carbon emissions and a major contributor to air pollutants such as PM2.5 and ozone.

It’s not just about endangerment

The evidence is clear: Climate change endangers human health. But there’s a flip side to the story.

When governments work to reduce the causes of climate change, they help tackle some of the world’s biggest health challenges. Cleaner vehicles and cleaner electricity mean cleaner air – and less heart and lung disease. More walking and cycling on safe sidewalks and bike paths mean more physical activity and lower chronic disease risks. The list goes on. By confronting climate change, we promote good health.

To really make America healthy, in our view, the nation should acknowledge the facts behind the endangerment finding and double down on our transition from fossil fuels to a healthy, clean energy future.

This article includes material from a story originally published Nov. 12, 2025.

Jonathan Levy, Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Health, Boston University; Howard Frumkin, Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington; Jonathan Patz, Professor of Environmental Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Vijay Limaye, Adjunct Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Continue ReadingTrump’s EPA decides climate change doesn’t endanger public health – the evidence says otherwise

Corporate Polluters Running Rampant Under Trump as EPA Enforcement ‘Dying a Quick Death’

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Original article by republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin listens as President Donald Trump holds a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC on August 26, 2025. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

“Administrator Zeldin is removing all incentives for big polluters to follow the law and turning a blind eye to those who suffer from the impacts of pollution.”

The Trump administration settled just 15 of the illegal pollution cases referred by the US Environmental Protection Agency in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House, according to data compiled by a government watchdog—the latest evidence that Trump officials are placing corporate profits above the EPA’s mission to “protect human health and the environment.”

In the report, The Collapse of Environmental Enforcement Under Trump’s EPA, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) noted Thursday that in the first year of former President Joe Biden’s administration, 71 cases referred by the EPA were prosecuted by the US Department of Justice (DOJ).

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“Under [EPA Administrator] Lee Zeldin, anti-pollution enforcement is dying a quick death,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of PEER and a former enforcement attorney at EPA.

The DOJ lodged just one environmental consent decree in a case regarding a statutory violation of the Clean Air Act from the day Trump was inaugurated just over a year ago until now—signaling that the agency “virtually stopped enforcing” the landmark law that regulates air pollution.

“Enforcing the Clean Air Act means going after violators within the oil, gas, petrochemical, coal, and motor vehicle industries that account for most air pollution,” reads the report. “But these White House favorites will be shielded from any serious enforcement, at least, while Lee Zeldin remains EPA’s administrator.”

“For the sake of our health and the environment, Congress and the American people need to push back against Lee Zeldin’s dismantling of EPA’s environmental enforcement program.”

In the first year of his first term, Trump’s DOJ settled 26 Clean Air Act cases, even more than the 22 the department prosecuted in Biden’s first year.

The report warns that plummeting enforcement actions are likely to contribute to health harms in vulnerable communities located near waterways that are filled with “algae blooms, bacteria, or toxic chemicals” and near energy and chemical industry infrastructure, where people are more likely to suffer asthma attacks and heart disease caused by smog and soot.

“Enforcing environmental laws ensures that polluters are held accountable and prevented from dumping their pollution on others for profit,” said Joanna Citron Day, general counsel for PEER and a former senior counsel at DOJ’s Environmental Enforcement Section. “For the sake of our health and the environment, Congress and the American people need to push back against Lee Zeldin’s dismantling of EPA’s environmental enforcement program.”

EPA’s own enforcement and compliance database identifies 2,374 major air pollution sources that have not had a full compliance evaluation in at least five years, and shows that no enforcement action has been taken at more than 400 sources that are marked as a “high priority.”

Nearly 900 pollution sources reported to the EPA that they exceeded their wastewater discharge limits at least 50 times in the past two years.

The agency has also repealed its rules limiting carbon pollution from gas-powered cars, arguing that the EPA lacks the authority to regulate carbon.

As public health risks mount, PEER noted, Zeldin is moving forward with plans to stop calculating the health benefits of rules aimed at reducing air pollution, and issued a memo last month detailing a “compliance first” policy emphasizing a “cooperative, industry-friendly approach” to environmental regulation.

“Administrator Zeldin is removing all incentives for big polluters to follow the law,” said Whitehouse, “and turning a blind eye to those who suffer from the impacts of pollution.”

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
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Continue ReadingCorporate Polluters Running Rampant Under Trump as EPA Enforcement ‘Dying a Quick Death’

1,000+ Experts Rip EPA for ‘Reckless Dismissal of Established Climate Science’

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin speaks at EPA Headquarters on February 18, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

Repealing the endangerment finding, they wrote, “is contrary to science and the public interest.”

More than 1,000 scientists and other experts on Tuesday sent a letter to US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin explaining why they “strenuously object” to his effort to repeal the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” which has enabled federal climate regulations over the past 15 years.

Amid mounting fears that he would take such action, Zeldin in late July unveiled the rule to rescind the landmark legal opinion that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the welfare of the American people—part of Republican President Donald Trump’s broader pro-polluter agenda.

“As climate scientists, public health experts, and economists, we can attest to the indisputable scientific evidence of human-caused climate change, its harmful impacts on people’s health and well-being, and the devastating costs it is imposing on communities across the nation and around the world,” states the new letter, organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists. “This explicit attempt to undermine or weaken these findings, as well as the critical regulations linked to them, is contrary to science and the public interest.”

“We also strongly oppose the EPA’s reckless dismissal of established climate science as part of its proposal to repeal the endangerment finding, including the agency’s heavy reliance on an unscientific study commissioned by the Department of Energy. This report is rife with inaccuracies, deliberately cherry-picks and mischaracterizes data, and has not undergone a rigorous scientific review process,” the letter continues, echoing an expert review of the government report from earlier this month.

🚨NEW: Scientists from nearly every state, DC, and Puerto Rico are calling out Trump's Environmental Protection Agency for failing to fulfill their core duties: protect the environment and public health.

— Union of Concerned Scientists (@ucs.org) 2025-09-16T15:17:28.815Z

Citing major US and global analyses, along with thousands of independent, peer-reviewed scientific studies, the letter stresses that “the scientific evidence on human-caused climate change and its consequences was unequivocal in 2009 and, since that time, has become even more dire and compelling.”

It says that “based on the best available science,” scientists know:

  • Climate change poses severe harms to human health and well-being;
  • Climate change is clearly increasing the likelihood of extreme events; and
  • The economic toll of climate change is rising.

Harms to human health and well-being include higher rates of heat-related deaths, increased spread of some infectious diseases, and decreased food and water safety due to climate-fueled extreme weather events, the letter says. It also highlights that, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “billion-dollar disasters in the United States are on the rise, driven by a combination of climate factors and increased development in disaster-prone areas.”

Despite such findings, the Trump administration is making various moves to boost the planet-wrecking fossil fuel industry and the president withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement—again—when he returned to office in January. Parties to the 2015 climate agreement aim to limit global temperature rise this century to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.

🌎🧪Over 1,000+ scientists joined together to defend the EPA's Endangerment Finding, and you have SIX DAYS to make your voice heard too.

— Union of Concerned Scientists (@ucs.org) 2025-09-16T15:17:28.816Z

“The world stands on the cusp of breaching the 1.5°C (2.7°F) mark on a long-term basis, the global average temperature increase above preindustrial levels that scientists have long warned about,” the experts noted Tuesday. “Communities across the nation are already dealing with devastating and costly climate impacts, that are set to worsen as global warming accelerates. Humanity’s window to act to stave off some of the worst impacts of climate change is fast closing; any further delay is harmful and costly.”

“We urge you to stop dismantling critical climate regulations and evading EPA’s responsibility by pushing disinformation about climate science and impacts,” they concluded. “Instead, we call on you to act with urgency to help address this pressing challenge by limiting heat-trapping emissions. People across the nation are relying on the EPA to fulfill its mission to protect public health and the environment.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Continue Reading1,000+ Experts Rip EPA for ‘Reckless Dismissal of Established Climate Science’

DC Protesters Rename Trump EPA Environmental Pollution Agency

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Protesters renamed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the Environmental Pollution Agency at its Washington, D.C. headquarters on August 7, 2025. (Photo: Extinction Rebellion D.C.)

“The days of shackling America’s oil, gas, and coal companies are over,” said spokesperson Melinda McFossilShill.

A renaming ceremony for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was held at its Washington, D.C. headquarters on Thursday to give the EPA a name that reflects its priorities under Administrator Lee Zeldin and Republican President Donald Trump.

On the heels of Zeldin’s visit to New England that spotlighted a push for the Constitution gas pipeline, a small group gathered outside the EPA building on Thursday to reintroduce it as the Environmental Pollution Agency and unveil its new logo.

“The days of shackling America’s oil, gas, and coal companies are over,” said Environmental Pollution Agency spokesperson Melinda McFossilShill. “The Trump administration stands for freedom, and that includes the freedom to pollute.”

McFossilShill is not a real representative of the agency, but rather a critic of what it’s become. Thursday’s “Make Pollution Great Again!” event was a protest, led by groups including Shut Down D.C. and the local arm of Extinction Rebellion.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNDqdA3x9Q5/

In addition to McFossilShill, protesters took on the personas of fossil fuel executives and backers, including Joe Gasfracker, vice president for corporate capture of government (a false name and position) at the (real) American Petroleum Institute.

“I want to extend my deepest gratitude to Administrator Zeldin and President Trump for finally ending the charade of so-called ‘environmental protection’ and making government work for our patriotic fossil fuel corporations again,” he said.

“There are hundreds of people dying in floods, thousands dying in hurricanes, and millions being sickened by particulate matter pollution, wildfire smoke, and extreme heat, but we must balance that against the billions of dollars in profit that our members make,” Gasfracker continued. “Billions are more than millions, so obviously our profits must take precedence.”

Another protester—dubbed Pete Pollution, executive director of Energy Villains for Increased Leakage (EVIL)—declared that “the American Dream has always been about the freedom to pour toxic chemicals into every community.”

“If we don’t pollute America’s environment, who will?” added Pollution. Other participants held signs that called for making rivers burn, causing more asthma, and destroying human health.

protesters held signs that called for making rivers burn, causing more asthma, and destroying human health

Protesters renamed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the Environmental Pollution Agency at its Washington, D.C. headquarters on August 7, 2025. (Photo: Extinction Rebellion D.C.)

During Trump’s second term, the EPA has faced intense criticism for a range of actions. Over the past month, the agency has put 144 employees on leave after they signed a letter criticizing the administration’s “harmful” policies, eliminated its scientific research arm in the “ultimate Friday night purge,” proposed reregistering a pesticide twice banned by federal courts, and moved to cancel $7 billion in solar grants for low- and middle-income households.

Perhaps most notably, the agency also unveiled a rule to rescind the 2009 “endangerment finding” that has enabled federal regulations aimed at the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency over the past 15 years.

Further, Trump last month signed a series of proclamations to provide what he called “regulatory relief” to over 100 coal, chemical manufacturing, iron ore processing, and sterile medical equipment facilities, with the White House claiming that rules imposed on them under former Democratic President Joe Biden’s EPA were “burdensome.”

At the time, John Walke, clean air director for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, accused Trump of signing a “literal free pass for polluters,” and warned that “if your family lives downwind of these plants, this is going to mean more toxic chemicals in the air you breathe.”

Elected Democrats—who have minorities in both chambers of Congress—have joined climate, environmental, and public health advocates in calling out Trump and Zeldin for various moves.

Jay Inslee: Trump and Zeldin have turned EPA into ‘Environmental Pollution Agency’ by revoking essential climate rule www.msnbc.com/ali-velshi/w…

— Ali Velshi (@velshi.com) 2025-08-04T15:51:45.752Z

On Thursday, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) led a letter to Zeldin about his proposal to gut power plant pollution standards.

“Climate change and toxic air pollution are serious issues,” dozens of Senate Democrats wrote to the EPA administrator. “We represent millions of constituents who risk poisoning from mercury and air toxics and who are facing the rising costs of the climate crisis.”

“Congress established the Clean Air Act to protect our constituents from these dangers. We urge EPA to follow its directive,” they added, urging Zeldin to withdraw two proposals on fossil fuel plant emissions.

In a Thursday statement, Schumer said that “the Trump administration is saying to hell with five decades worth of protection against deadly pollution and neurotoxins that has saved thousands of lives, made communities safer, and our economy stronger. Why? To appease Big Oil and fossil fuel billionaires.”

“The Trump administration’s obsession with gutting clean air protections and allowing more poison into the air is reckless, dangerous, and a clear reminder: Republicans care about their donors, not you,” he charged. “The EPA needs to stop ignoring the science and the facts and immediately reverse course and put the health and safety of Americans first.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Continue ReadingDC Protesters Rename Trump EPA Environmental Pollution Agency