{"id":453699,"date":"2026-02-04T17:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T17:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/453699\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T17:15:10","slug":"maha-has-reshaped-health-policy-now-its-working-on-environmental-rules-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/453699\/","title":{"rendered":"MAHA has reshaped health policy. Now it\u2019s working on environmental rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n On New Year\u2019s Eve, Lee Zeldin<\/a> did something out of character for an Environmental Protection Agency<\/a> leader who has been hacking away at regulations intended to protect Americans\u2019 air and water.\n <\/p>\n

\n He announced new restrictions on five chemicals commonly used in building materials, plastic products and adhesives, and he cheered it as a \u201cMAHA win.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n It was one of many signs of a fragile collaboration that has been building between a Republican administration traditionally supportive of big business and the Make America Healthy Again movement, which argues that corporate environmental harms are putting people\u2019s health in danger.\n <\/p>\n

\n The unlikely pairing grew out of the coalition\u2019s success influencing public health policy<\/a> with the help of its biggest champion, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As health secretary, he has pared back vaccine recommendations and shifted the government\u2019s position on topics like seed oils<\/a>, fluoride<\/a> and Tylenol<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Building on that momentum, the movement now sees a glimmer of hope in the EPA\u2019s promise to release a \u201cMAHA agenda\u201d in the coming months.\n <\/p>\n

\n At stake is the strength of President Donald Trump<\/a> \u2019s coalition as November\u2019s midterm elections threaten his party\u2019s control of Congress. After a politically diverse group of MAHA devotees came together to help Trump return to the White House a little more than one year ago, disappointing them could mean losing the support of a vocal voting bloc.\n <\/p>\n

\n Activists like Courtney Swan, who focuses on nutritional issues and has spoken with EPA officials in recent months, are watching closely.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is becoming an issue that if the EPA does not start getting their stuff together, then they could lose the midterms over this,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Christopher Bosso, a professor at Northeastern University who researches environmental policy, said Zeldin didn\u2019t seem to take MAHA seriously at first, \u201cbut now he has to, because they\u2019ve been really calling for his scalp.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Last year, prominent activist Kelly Ryerson was so frustrated with the EPA over its weakening of protections against harmful chemicals that she and other MAHA supporters drew up a petition<\/a> to get Zeldin fired.\n <\/p>\n

\n The final straw, Ryerson said, was the EPA\u2019s approval of two new pesticides for use on food. Ryerson, whose social media account \u201cGlyphosate Girl\u201d focuses on nontoxic food systems, said the pesticides contained \u201cforever chemicals,\u201d which resist breakdown, making them hazardous to people. The EPA has disputed that characterization.\n <\/p>\n

\"Activist<\/p>\n

\n But Ryerson\u2019s relationship with the EPA changed at a MAHA Christmas party in Washington in December. She talked to Zeldin there and felt that he listened to her perspective. Then he invited her and a handful of other activists to sit down with him at the EPA headquarters. That meeting lasted an hour, and it led to more conversations with Zeldin\u2019s deputies.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe level of engagement with people concerned with their health is absolutely revolutionary,\u201d Ryerson said in an interview. She said the agency\u2019s upcoming plan \u201cwill say whether or not they take it seriously,\u201d but she praised MAHA\u2019s access as \u201cunprecedented.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Rashmi Joglekar, associate director of science, policy and engagement at the University of California, San Francisco\u2019s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, said it\u2019s not typical for an activist group to meet with the EPA administrator. She said MAHA\u2019s ability to make inroads so quickly shows how \u201cpowerful\u201d the coalition has become.\n <\/p>\n

\n The movement\u2019s influence is not just at the EPA. MAHA has steered federal and state lawmakers away from enacting liability shields that protect pesticide manufacturers from expensive lawsuits. In Congress, after MAHA activists lobbied against such protections in a funding bill, they were removed. A similar measure stalled in Tennessee\u2019s legislature.\n <\/p>\n

\n Zeldin joined a call in December with the advocacy group MAHA Action, where he invited activists to participate in developing the EPA\u2019s MAHA agenda. Since then, EPA staffers have regularly appeared on the weekly calls and promoted what they say are open-door policies.\n <\/p>\n

\n Last month, Ryerson\u2019s petition to get Zeldin fired was updated to note that several signers had met with him and are in a \u201ccollaborative effort to advance the MAHA agenda.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Zeldin\u2019s office declined to make him available for an interview on his work with MAHA activists, but EPA Press Secretary Brigit Hirsch said the forthcoming agenda will \u201cdirectly respond to priorities we\u2019ve heard from MAHA advocates and communities.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The American Chemistry Council said \u201csmart, pro-growth policies can protect both the environment and human health as well as grow the U.S. economy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Despite the ongoing conversations, the Republican emphasis on deregulation still puts MAHA and the EPA on a potential collision course.\n <\/p>\n

\n Lori Ann Burd, the environmental health program director at The Center for Biological Diversity, said the administration has a particularly strong alliance with industry interests.\n <\/p>\n

\n As an example, she pointed to the EPA\u2019s proposal to allow the broad use of the weed killer Dicamba on soybeans and cotton. A month before the announcement, the EPA hired a lobbyist for the soybean association, Kyle Kunkler, to serve in a senior position overseeing pesticides.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hirsch denied that Kunkler had anything to do with the decision and said EPA\u2019s pesticide decisions are \u201cdriven by statutory standards and scientific evidence.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Environmentalists said the hiring of ex-industry leaders is a theme of this administration. Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, for example, are former higher-ups at the American Chemistry Council, an industry association. They now work in leadership in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, which oversees pesticide and toxic chemical regulation.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hirsch said the agency consults with ethics officials to prevent conflicts of interest and ensures that appointees are qualified and focused on the science, \u201cunlike previous administrations that too often deferred to activist groups instead of objective evidence.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Alexandra Mu\u00f1oz, a molecular toxicologist who collaborates with MAHA activists on certain issues and attended the hour-long meeting with Zeldin, said she sensed the industry\u2019s influence in the room.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThey were very polite in the meeting. In terms of the tone, there was a lot of receptivity,\u201d she said. \u201cHowever, in terms of what was said, it felt like we were interacting with a lot of industry talking points.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Molecular<\/p>\n

\n Hirsch said the MAHA agenda will address issues like lead pipes, forever chemicals, plastic pollution, food quality and Superfund cleanups.\n <\/p>\n

\n Ryerson said she wants to get the chemical atrazine out of drinking water and stop the pre-harvest desiccation of food, in which farmers apply pesticides to crops immediately before they are harvested.\n <\/p>\n

\n She also wants to see cancer warnings on the ingredient glyphosate, which some studies associate with cancer even as the EPA said it is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed.\n <\/p>\n

\n While she\u2019s optimistic that the political payoffs will be big enough for Zeldin to act, she said some of the moves he\u2019s already promoting as \u201cMAHA wins\u201d are no such thing.\n <\/p>\n

\n For example, in his New Year\u2019s Eve announcement on a group of chemicals called phthalates, he said the agency intends to regulate some of them for environmental and workplace risks, but didn\u2019t address the thousands of consumer products that contain the ingredients.\n <\/p>\n

\n Swan said time will tell if the agency is being performative.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe EPA is giving very mixed signals right now,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On New Year\u2019s Eve, Lee Zeldin did something out of character for an Environmental Protection Agency leader who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-453699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}