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environmental protection agency
Nearly Half of Americans Breathe Unsafe Air. Trump's Climate Rampage Is Set to Make It Worse
"Even as more people are breathing unhealthy air, the federal staff, programs, and policies that are supposed to be cleaning up pollution are facing rollbacks, restructuring, and funding challenges."
Apr 23, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump pledged following his 2024 election victory to deliver the "cleanest air" on the planet, but a report published Wednesday warns that his assault on the Environmental Protection Agency, efforts to roll back progress on clean energy, and attempts to boost the polluting coal industry are set to make an already bad situation worse.
The American Lung Association's (ALA) 2025 "State of the Air" report found that 156 million people in the U.S.—nearly half of the country's population—lived in areas with dangerous ozone or particle pollution between 2021 and 2023, the latest years from which data is available.
That's 25 million more people living in areas with unsafe air than the previous period examined by the ALA, which attributed the increase to "extreme heat and wildfires" made more frequent and intense by the global climate emergency. Trump appears bent on accelerating the crisis with his efforts to bolster the fossil fuel industry, the primary driver of planetary warming.
"In the three years covered by this report, individuals in the U.S. experienced the highest number of days when particle pollution reached 'unhealthy' (red days) and 'very unhealthy' (purple days) levels in the 26 years of reporting the 'State of the Air,'" the group said Wednesday. "This year's report includes data from the summer of 2023, when smoke from wildfires in Canada significantly impacted midwestern and eastern states, resulting in worse particle pollution."
Bakersfield-Delano, California, Fairbanks-College, Alaska, and Eugene-Springfield, Oregon ranked as the three U.S. areas impacted most by short-term particle pollution. Los Angeles-Long Beach, Visalia, and Bakersfield-Delano—all in California—and Phoenix-Mesa, Arizona were the areas hit hardest by ozone pollution, according to the ALA report.
"Families across the U.S. are dealing with the health impacts of air pollution every day, and extreme heat and wildfires are making it worse," said Harold Wimmer, the ALA's president and CEO. "Air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick, and leading to low birth weight in babies. This year's report shows the dramatic impact that air pollution has on a growing number of people."
"Even as more people are breathing unhealthy air, the federal staff, programs, and policies that are supposed to be cleaning up pollution are facing rollbacks, restructuring, and funding challenges," Wimmer continued, alluding to the Trump administration's slash-and-burn attacks on key government intiatives. "For decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has worked to ensure people have clean air to breathe, from providing trustworthy air quality forecasts to making sure polluters who violate the law clean up."
"Efforts to slash staff, funding, and programs at EPA," he warned, "are leaving families even more vulnerable to harmful air pollution. We need to protect the EPA."
The report comes after the Trump administration marked the eve of Earth Day by sending termination notices to more EPA employees, specifically taking aim at environmental justice divisions. The EPA is currently led by Trump appointee Lee Zeldin, who as a member of Congress repeatedly voted to weaken Clean Air Act standards.
The New York Timesreported Monday that under Zeldin's leadership, the EPA has "shut down its offices responsible for addressing the disproportionately high levels of pollution that poor communities face."
"Internal documents have outlined plans to eliminate the agency's scientific research arm, a move that experts have said will hinder clean water improvements, air quality monitoring, toxic site cleanups, and other parts of the agency's mission," the Times added.
Earlier this month, as Common Dreamsreported, Trump signed several executive orders aimed at promoting the coal industry, which the ALA report identifies as a key contributor to dangerous fine particulate matter air pollution.
"Coal kills," Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous said in response to the orders. "In the last two decades, nearly half a million Americans have died from exposure to coal pollution. Forcing coal plants to stay online will cost Americans more, get more people sick with respiratory and heart conditions, and lead to more premature deaths. Donald Trump's plan is as despicable as it is reckless and ill-conceived."
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'Sick': Trump Marks Earth Day With Layoff Notice for Hundreds of EPA Staff
"The only people who will benefit from their firings are corporate polluters."
Apr 22, 2025
As defenders of the planet marked Earth Day with pledges to fight the destructive agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump, some green groups on Tuesday responded with alarm to the administration's plans for layoffs at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Several news outlets obtained the notice that EPA Assistant Deputy Administrator Travis Voyles sent on Monday evening to staffers with the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well as regional EJ divisions, warning of a reduction in force (RIF) that will cut 280 employees and reassign about 175 others this summer.
"This action is necessary to align our workforce with the agency's current and future needs and to ensure the efficient and effective operation of our programs," Voyles said. "With this action, EPA is delivering organizational improvements to the personnel structure that will directly benefit the American people and better advance the agency's core mission of protecting human health and the environment."
The Washington Postnoted that "the news comes months after the agency placed 171 of the office's employees on administrative leave and then reversed course, reinstating dozens of regional employees in offices across the country," and as decision-makers at the EPA have been weighing how to implement Trump's executive order targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
"It's a gut punch but long expected," said an employee who was put on leave in February and spoke with the Post on the condition of anonymity. "Announcing a RIF of the EJ program on the eve of Earth Day is sick and shows exactly who they are."
Joyce Howell, executive vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238 that represents over 8,400 EPA workers nationwide, toldReuters that "decimating our agency and environmental justice workforce goes against our oath to protect human health and to keep our planet healthy and habitable for future generations."
In a Tuesday statement, Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous similarly said that "the Trump administration is determined to destroy the stated mission of the Environmental Protection Agency to protect human health and the environment. All of us deserve to have clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, and be protected from toxic pollution."
"Instead, the Trump administration is selling us out to corporate polluters by actively working to slash clean air and water protections and laying off critical environmental justice staff," he continued. "The people that Donald Trump is putting out of work are hardworking, dedicated civil servants who have devoted their careers to protecting our clean air and water and securing a livable future for us all. The only people who will benefit from their firings are corporate polluters."
Chitra Kumar, a former official with the impacted EPA office who's now managing director at the Union of Concerned Scientists' Climate and Energy Program, said in a statement that "the layoff notice sent to employees claimed their dismissal would 'better advance the agency's core mission of protecting human health and the environment,' which is the height of hypocrisy given that these staffers are working to reduce pollution and toxins in the communities suffering the most harm."
"Scientific data shows that, due to historic and ongoing injustices, communities overburdened by polluting industries, smog-forming traffic, and contaminated waterways and soil are predominantly low-income, Black, Brown, and Indigenous. Exposure to consistently higher levels of pollution increases the risk of asthma, heart and lung ailments, cancer, and even death," said Kumar, who took aim at EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
"Zeldin and the Trump administration continue to focus on propping up the profits of coal, oil, and gas companies and other big polluters who take advantage of every loophole available at the expense of public health. This is about all of us, our children, and grandchildren," she stressed. "If Administrator Zeldin goes forward with this destructive move, he will be responsible for ending decades of work intended to help set right the harmful legacy of pollution in overburdened communities in a handout to big polluters."
Kumar pointed out that "this is also part of the Trump administration's larger ongoing strategy to dismantle EPA and its core functions and undermine its very mission, which is to help keep all people in America safe. In the time ahead, Zeldin is expected to launch a repeal, or 'no enforce' order, for a host of science-backed environmental regulations and engage in a wholesale 'reorganization' of the agency, including gutting the Research and Development Office that produces science undergirding EPA decisions."
As criticism of Zeldin and Trump's plans for the EPA mounted, people protested against the administration in communities across the country. Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said in a statement that "Donald Trump, backed by fossil fuel billionaires, is waging a full-scale assault on the very lifesaving protections that Earth Day was created to demand."
While Republicans currently control the White House and both chambers of Congress, some elected Democrats used Earth Day to advocate for policies that would protect the planet. Multiple senators
used the day to promote bills that would protect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans from offshore oil and gas drilling.
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'We Will Not Cooperate': Earth Day Puts Focus on Need to Resist Trump's Planet-Destroying Policies
"We are ready to fight for our future with everything we've got. Our generation will not sit back while Trump and fossil fuel billionaires destroy our home," said one climate leader.
Apr 22, 2025
As green groups honor the 55th annual Earth Day on Tuesday, environmental leaders are highlighting the need to fight back against the detrimental climate policies of U.S. President Donald Trump and his "billionaire allies," even as they brace for the possibility of further federal action that could hamper the climate movement.
Since entering office, Trump has signed executive orders aimed at bolstering oil, gas, and coal and installed Cabinet members with ties to the fossil fuel industry. Trump's U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator (EPA) in March announced a sweep of deregulatory actions and his administration has enacted cuts at federal agencies that work on environmental and climate issues, such the EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
For Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, Earth Day is a call to action to resist these moves.
"We are ready to fight for our future with everything we've got. Our generation will not sit back while Trump and fossil fuel billionaires destroy our home," said Shiney-Ajay in a statement on Tuesday. "We will not cooperate with the destruction of our world."
"Donald Trump, backed by fossil fuel billionaires, is waging a full-scale assault on the very lifesaving protections that Earth Day was created to demand," she added.
In addition to actions already taken, Trump is reportedly considering targeting the nonprofit tax-exempt status of green groups, which allows them to forego paying federal income tax. Such a move would likely impact their ability to fundraise because these groups collect tax-exempt donations. It is rumored that such an order could come down on Tuesday, to coincide with Earth Day.
Ashley Nunes, public lands policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity, wrote in an op-ed Tuesday that Trump has worked quickly to "pursue an agenda that puts the profits of his billionaire allies above the well-being of the American people and our environment."
Trump's strategy appears to be to do so much damage that it's impossible to focus on one issue, wrote Nunes, "yet Earth Day reminds us that our public lands, wildlife and, climate are priorities among the flurry of broad and harmful executive actions."
The executive director at the Center for Biological Diversity confirmed last week that the organization was preparing for a potential presidential order aimed at green groups' tax-exempt status.
Anti-billionaire sentiment is influencing the in-person Earth Day actions planned for Tuesday. On Tuesday, the climate group Planet Over Profit and the protestors who organize under the slogan #TeslaTakedown will picket what they say is the New York home of James Murdoch the son of billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch and a Tesla board member. Tesla is the electric vehicle company of Trump's billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who has played a core role in Trump's efforts to slash the size of government.
The electric vehicle company is a target because "Tesla ranks fifth among companies producing toxic air pollution in the country" and "there's no greater threat to our ability to live rich, dignified lives on a safe, stable planet than the Trump/Musk regime," among other reasons, according to the organizers.
According to The Guardian, thousands of people gathered on Saturday in New York City for a march that was endorsed by climate and migrant justice groups. "The two movements converged amid Trump's crackdown on migrants and embrace of fossil fuels—which will drive further climate collapse and forced migration," according to the outlet.
Climate groups are also coordinating Earth Day mobilization under the slogan "All Out on Earth Day"
Meanwhile, EarthDay.org, the global organizer of Earth Day, is featuring Earth Day events around the globe on its website and encouraging people to take part.
"We need to demonstrate to our leaders in government and business that we are still here, we are a witness to their actions, and we will hold them accountable to do right by our planet and its people," wrote Susan Bass, the senior vice president of programs and operations at EarthDay.org, in an opinion piece published Monday.
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