Businesses can now get permission to poison both the environment and the American people simply by sending an email to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin. Thanks to Zeldin, a company can shoot an email requesting a presidential exemption under the Clean Air Act to a slew of Joe Biden-era rules.
If their discreet email requests are approved, companies will be allowed to fill the environment with toxic chemicals such as arsenic, benzene, and mercury without regulations.
Benzene might be the lesser known evil out of those three, but it’s definitely highly toxic. The chemical is known for causing cancer, such as leukemia. It can also lead to lung issues or blood disorders like anemia. In some cases, neurological disorders have been reported upon exposure. And as Trump and his cronies push away from clean energy, it’s no surprise that this chemical is commonly found in oil.
“EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s action is an extreme and improper abuse of Clean Air Act authorities that only allow for exemptions from vital pollution protections in very narrow circumstances,” Environmental Defense Fund’s General Counsel Vickie Patton said in a statement provided to Daily Kos.“ This is a Trump EPA-led effort to evade established limits on toxic pollution that protect millions of people across the U.S.”
The environmental nonprofit is pushing back against Zeldin’s greenlight for companies to poison people in the name of profits. This week, the group filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the names of the companies seeking exemption from environmental regulations.
“The American public deserves to know what the Trump EPA and polluters are doing to the air they breathe,” Patton said.
Since Zeldin was appointed, he has really gotten to work on his main goal of driving what he calls a “dagger through the heart of climate change religion.”
Despite saying he believes climate change is real during his Senate confirmation hearing, Zeldin has done everything in his power to remove the agency’s ability to do its job.
More so, Zeldin has been working overtime to remove grants for environmental projects that were already approved, paid, and in progress.
And while the hammer hasn’t dropped, documents obtained by Democrats on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology last week revealed that the secretary reportedly intended to lay off key scientists.
Related | EPA purges vital staff in win for Trump’s ‘polluter buddies’
Workers within the EPA have gone so far to pen anonymous letters begging for help as the agency is dismantled within.
“We cannot stand by and allow this to happen,” the workers demanded in an Environmental Health News op-ed.
“We need to hold this administration accountable to serving the American people, applying the same mandates that we have held our federal workforce and grant recipients to: follow the law, follow the science, and be transparent.”
All of this is of course building on the “bonfire of climate regulations” that Trump has set since the first day of this presidency, not to mention what he did the first time around.
