Trump Is Unraveling a Hard-Won Rule to Reduce Toxic Pollution From Chemical Plants – Mother Jones

“Everything that the Biden administration did to help protect us was pretty much just thrown in the garbage,” Tish Taylor said in July, and replaced by “a death sentence.” St. John the Baptist Parish, where her family lives, has the country’s highest risk of cancer from air pollution—nearly 50 times the national average. A disproportionate percentage of those exposed to the highest levels of pollution in the region are Black…

 https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/08/trump-zeldin-epa-rollback-rules-toxic-chemical-plant-pollution-emissions-cancer-alley/

Trump EPA aims to exempt datacenters from disclosing air pollution, advocates warn

Trump administration proposes new rule to dismantle requirement for datacenters to publicly report air pollution…

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/25/datacenters-air-pollution-epa

EPA proposes weakening heavy-duty truck pollution rules : NPR

According to the EPA's analysis, the changes would save the trucking industry between $4,130 and $6,152 per diesel engine affected. Compared to the current emissions rules, the change would increase ozone-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from heavy duty trucks by 4.2% in 2030 and by 11.6% by 2055. 

The EPA did not model the resulting effect on air quality or human health, but noted that the modifications would likely reduce the benefits of prior rules changes in 2023.

 https://www.npr.org/2026/07/09/nx-s1-5886354/epa-heavy-duty-truck-emissions

 

Air pollution may cause childhood obesity by disrupting impulse control, study finds

Babies exposed to higher levels of neurotoxin more likely to have difficulty controlling impulses later, research shows…

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/06/air-pollution-childhood-obesity-study

 

Air pollution linked to DNA changes in sperm, research shows

Study of more than 2,000 men identifies epigenetic changes linked to exposure to common outdoor pollutants…

 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/07/air-pollution-dna-changes-sperm-men

 

Babies exposed to air pollution during pregnancy take longer to learn to speak, research finds

A KCL study has found that exposure during the first trimester of pregnancy delayed speech development…

 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/29/babies-exposed-to-air-pollution-during-pregnancy-take-longer-to-learn-to-speak-research-finds

 

Nearly half of US children are breathing dangerous levels of air pollution, report warns

American Lung Association report comes amid Trump EPA’s expansive rollback of environmental protections…

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/22/air-pollution-report-dangerous-levels-children

 

Tackling air pollution should be part of government work to cut cancer rates, scientists say

There is increasing evidence that air pollution is associated with bladder, kidney and brain cancers and that air pollution can affect survival rates. 

With home woodburning increasing, the code calls on governments to discourage and phase out solid fuels for heating, cooking and recreation. It also calls for incentives for the installation of home energy systems that do not pollute, such as heat pumps, solar power and geothermal energy...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/06/tackle-air-pollution-cut-cancer-rates-scientists

 

Democratic senators launch inquiry into EPA’s repeal of key air pollution enforcement measure

"It is literally zero surprise that they knew their hand-picked climate deniers weren't putting out real science," Whitehouse wrote on X in response to an article suggesting the Trump administration ignored the recommendations of scientists. "Their nonsense has never been real, but part of a fraudulent propaganda campaign, designed by fossil fuel to protect its 'free-to-pollute' business model."…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/14/democratic-senators-inquiry-epa-air-pollution-enforcement

 

In the Eyes of Trump’s EPA, Human Health Is Now Literally Worthless – Mother Jones

How the agency's new math favors polluters over people...

 https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/trumps-epa-human-health-pm2-ozone-air-pollution-regulation-cost-benefit-analysis/

 

Air pollution from oil and gas causes 90,000 premature US deaths each year, says new study

Study analyzed health impacts of fossil fuels from exploration to end use, and found communities of color bear brunt of harm…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/22/air-pollution-oil-gas-health-study

Senate overturns EPA rule on seven highly toxic air pollutants - The Washington Post

"Repealing this rule would be such a giveaway to corporate polluters," said Nathan Park, an associate legislative representative at Earthjustice. "These facilities could increase their toxic pollution without any accountability or oversight."…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/05/01/senate-vote-epa-air-pollution/

 

Pollution exposure linked to mental health hospital admissions, says study

Average cumulative exposure to air pollution was strongly associated with higher rates of hospital admissions, both for mental and physical illnesses. Higher cumulative exposure to NO2, PM10, and PM2.5 was associated with a higher incidence of hospital admissions for all causes...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/17/pollution-exposure-linked-to-mental-health-hospital-admissions-says-study

Project 2025 promises billions of tonnes more carbon pollution – study

Project 2025 calls for a widespread evisceration of environmental protections, allowing for a glut of new oil and gas drilling, the repeal of the IRA and even the elimination of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service so they can be replaced by private companies. The conservative Heritage Foundation, which leads Project 2025, has said a new Trump administration should "eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere"… 

It would also, according to the new modeling, cause several thousand extra premature deaths by the end of the decade due to worsened air pollution, and cause a bump in Americans' household costs compared to a path of more ambitious climate action. The Project 2025 team did not respond to a request for comment…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/14/trump-project-2025-climate

Heart attacks, cancer, dementia, premature deaths: 4 essential reads on the health effects driving EPA’s new fine particle air pollution standard

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to set air pollution standards at levels that protect public health. In the four articles that follow, scholars wrote about the many ways in which exposure to PM2.5 contributes to cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, other illnesses such as dementia, and premature deaths...

https://theconversation.com/heart-attacks-cancer-dementia-premature-deaths-4-essential-reads-on-the-health-effects-driving-epas-new-fine-particle-air-pollution-standard-223057

How Harmful Are Gas Stove Pollutants, Really? - The New York Times

The machinery quickly detected the change: a rise in concentrations of nitrogen dioxide — which, among other negative health effects, can irritate the respiratory system, aggravate symptoms of respiratory diseases and contribute to asthma. Concentrations climbed to 500 parts per billion, five times the safety benchmark for one-hour exposures set by the Environmental Protection Agency. (Concentrations of benzene, a human carcinogen that is present in cigarette smoke and car emissions, also tripled.)…

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/climate/gas-stove-pollution-danger.html

Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

"Both air pollution and cigarette smoke contain lots of promoting substances. This has been known since the early 1960s but has essentially been ignored, as everyone was focused on mutations," he said. "The tobacco companies are now saying that smokers should switch to vaping as this reduces exposure to mutagens, and therefore the cancer risk is going to go away. This is not true, as our cells get mutations anyway, and there is evidence that vaping can induce lung disease and cause inflammation similar to promoters."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/sep/10/cancer-breakthrough-is-a-wake-up-call-on-danger-of-air-pollution

The Supreme Court Dealt a Terrible Blow to Children’s Health - The New York Times - Opinion

As researchers who study the health effects of air pollution in children — in utero through adolescence — we recently reviewed hundreds of studies and concluded that climate change is a threat multiplier for infants and children, placing nearly every child around the world at risk from at least one climate-intensified hazard: extreme heat, severe storms and floods, wildfires, food insecurity and insect-borne diseases...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/09/opinion/environment/climate-change-supreme-court-epa-children-health.html

 

Redlined areas see higher levels of air pollution many decades later : NPR

"We see a really clear association between how these maps were drawn in the '30s and the air pollution disparities today," Joshua Apte, one of the paper's authors and an assistant professor of environmental engineering and environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley, tells NPR. "And that's not surprising, but it is very striking."

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/10/1085882933/redlining-pollution-racism

Air pollution is slashing years off the lives of billions, report finds

"Furthermore, we're not just letting it happen, we're actually causing it," …
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/01/air-pollution-is-slashing-years-off-the-lives-of-billions-report-finds