{"id":437932,"date":"2026-05-12T13:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/437932\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T13:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:34:09","slug":"trumps-rollback-of-toxic-gas-rules-limits-epas-authority-to-protect-public-health-analysis-says-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/437932\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s rollback of toxic gas rules limits EPA\u2019s authority to protect public health, analysis says | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new Trump administration<\/a> plan to rescind 2024 regulations for toxic ethylene oxide (EtO) pollution<\/a> more broadly aims to limit the Environmental Protection Agency<\/a>\u2019s authority to strengthen public health protections around hazardous emissions and could result in more of the toxin being released into the air.<\/p>\n

Recent research has found EtO is about 60 times more carcinogenic than thought when the last regulations were developed in 2006. In 2024, the Biden EPA passed a rule that strengthened the regulations to reflect the updated science, and required the nation\u2019s EtO emitters to collectively cut their emissions by about 90%.<\/p>\n

A new Harvard analysis details<\/a> the administration\u2019s case, which would limit the EPA\u2019s ability to strengthen regulations when it determines hazardous air pollutants are more dangerous than previously thought.<\/p>\n

If the Trump EPA is successful in the legal fight, the 2024 regulations would be rescinded, resulting in nearly 8 tons of the carcinogenic gas continuing to be released in largely low-income neighborhoods. It would also permanently make it more difficult for the EPA to later protect people from toxic air pollutants.<\/p>\n

The move is part of the industry\u2019s and the administration\u2019s \u201cbroader strategy to rollback a wide array of controls on toxic chemicals and, particularly, carcinogens\u201d, said Erik Olson, senior adviser with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) action fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis sends up a signal flare to everyone that we\u2019ve got a real threat, and that the administration plans to gut cancer protections,\u201d Olson said. The NRDC is among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit on a separate issue<\/a> around the chemical.<\/p>\n

The outcome of its plan is especially important, public health advocates say, because of how regulations around chemicals are structured. Chemicals are generally approved with little review of industry claims that their substances are safe, and it can take independent science decades to learn the true risk, as has happened with EtO.<\/p>\n

It would also likely undo regulations, or proposed rules, around two other chemicals.<\/p>\n

EtO is a flammable, colorless gas used to sterilize about 20bn medical devices annually, including pacemakers and syringes, as well as some foods. The chemical is also a potent carcinogen when inhaled, and linked to leukemia, among other health issues. Rescinding the new rule would leave about 2.3 million people exposed to the toxic gas.<\/p>\n

The 2024 Biden EPA rule would have reduced emissions at 89 facilities, had they gone into effect. The rule would have achieved that by, among other measures, requiring companies to use continuous monitoring and rein in fugitive emissions. Fugitive emission is air pollution that escapes from piping or places within a factory from which they are not intended to escape.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s proposed rescission would save companies $47m annually, the Harvard report notes. The Trump EPA has stopped calculating the costs associated with cancer increases, so the societal burden is unclear.<\/p>\n

The Clean Air Act explicitly requires the EPA to do a \u201cresidual risk review\u201d of toxic chemicals within eight years after they are designated as hazardous pollutants. The agency first set emission standards for EtO in 1994, and completed its residual review in 2006, said Giancarlo Vargas, the paper\u2019s co-author and attorney with the Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program.<\/p>\n

The latest research shows the chemical is estimated to be 60 times more carcinogenic than levels used in the 2006 re-assessment, Vargas said, so the EPA under Biden did a \u201cdiscretionary\u201d review aimed at strengthening limits and protecting public health.<\/p>\n

The Clean Air Act, however, \u201cdoesn\u2019t really discuss whether you can do additional discretionary reviews\u201d beyond the first that checks for a pollutant\u2019s health impact, Vargas said. Under Biden, the EPA essentially interpreted the law as not prohibiting additional reviews, but the Trump administration is \u201cnow saying actually the silence means we don\u2019t have the authority to go do this again\u201d, Vargas said.<\/p>\n

It is a \u201cbig change\u201d that would \u201crein in the EPA\u2019s ability to consider public health risks when updating hazardous air pollutant standards\u201d, Vargas added.<\/p>\n

He said he could not speak to why EPA would want to do this, and the paper dissects the legal strategy, but does not take a position about whether the Trump EPA\u2019s actions were sound or ethical.<\/p>\n

The agency is required by the Clean Air Act to do a technical review every eight years that assesses whether the best available technology around a chemical is being used, but that does not directly include public health questions.<\/p>\n

The administration\u2019s action around EtO is \u201cpart of a broader pattern of authority limiting interpretations by the EPA\u201d, said Erika Kranz, a supervisor at the Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen EPA in other contexts during this administration also adopt these new statutory interpretations that limit the agency\u2019s authority,\u201d she said, noting the administration\u2019s recent, controversial endangerment finding<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The stakes in the legal battle are especially high because \u201cthis is locked in in the future \u2013 the EPA can\u2019t take a new interpretation of that statute,\u201d Kranz added.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the NRDC is suing to stop the Trump administration from exempting EtO and other chemicals from regulations under the hazardous air pollutant rule. The president is wielding a never-before-used provision in the law that allows for exemptions for national security purposes, or if technology to implement the rule is \u201cnot available\u201d.<\/p>\n

The move exempted about half of all commercial medical sterilizers from EtO standards, but the administration has not provided any evidence to support the decision, the NRDC alleges.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s exemptions of chemical plants from regulations of hazardous air pollutants not only sacrifices the health of communities, but they are also illegal and undemocratic,\u201d Jen Sass, NRDC\u2019s attorney, said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new Trump administration plan to rescind 2024 regulations for toxic ethylene oxide (EtO) pollution more broadly aims…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-437932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}