Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency moves to gut environmental protections

The new administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, has announced plans to undo 27 key rules limiting air and water pollution from mining, drilling, and power generation.

The agency will also strip itself of the power to regulate greenhouse gases and shut down its efforts to protect communities disproportionately exposed to pollution, said Zeldin, in what he called “the largest deregulatory announcement in US history.”

Zeldin’s announcement, made in a video on the EPA website, reframed the agency’s mission, saying its goal was to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business.”1

He did not mention the agency’s congressionally mandated goals of protecting the environment and public health, set out by its first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, who said that the EPA has “no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce; only the critical obligation …