In truth, the cuts make it harder for EPA to get things done. Losing 4,000 essential employees means fewer staff to monitor pollution and enforce environmental laws, weakening protections for communities and the environment.
Despite the reductions, the agency says the changes will improve its ability to fulfill its mission and protect public health and the environment.
The EPA cuts hit scientific and public health expertise hardest, with disproportionate losses of Ph.D.-level staff, team leaders, and health professionals.
EPA lost more than 4,000 employees in the first year of Trump’s second term, cutting staff to 12,849—its lowest level since the Reagan administration. The 24% drop is more than double the rate of losses across the rest of the federal workforce. insideclimatenews.org/news/0603202...
Cheniere Energy is exploiting a tax credit meant for small, cleaner vehicles to subsidize massive LNG tankers. That means encouraging more pollution while collecting $370 million from taxpayers that should be going to promote clean fuels.
The credit expired in 2024, and was supposed to apply to motor vehicles and motorboats under 65 feet. That is far smaller than LNG tankers, which can be more than 1,000 feet long.
Signed in 2005 by George W. Bush, the alternative fuel excise tax credit promoted non-gasoline fuels but set no emissions limits.
The money, reported in the company’s recently released annual financial report, was the sum of alternative fuel tax credits from 2018 to 2024 that Cheniere claimed for using LNG to power its tankers.
In the first quarter of 2026, Cheniere Energy—the nation’s largest LNG producer and exporter—received a $370 million payment from the IRS, a payout that critics say the company should not have received. insideclimatenews.org/news/2702202...
Climate change is in fact, still very much a threat – and no amount of denial will change that. environmentalintegrity.org/epa-watch/
The Trump Administration recently announced plans to eliminate the EPA’s legal basis for regulating greenhouse gas pollution. The proposal to end the so-called “endangerment finding” means that EPA no longer believes that climate change is a danger to public health and welfare.
This spike is no surprise given President Trump’s actions to exempt coal power plants from key pollution rules. Rolling back safeguards invites dirtier operations, higher emissions, and more toxic pollution. That’s exactly what the data now shows.
Because emissions grew faster than power generation last year, it suggests plant owners burned dirtier coal or shut off pollution controls more often last year.
Rising sulfur dioxide emissions threaten public health through lung disease and asthma attacks. Power plants also released more mercury, a dangerous neurotoxin, last year.
According to EPA data analyzed by NRDC, sulfur dioxide emissions rose 18% last year—one of the biggest jumps in 30 years—and outpaced power production. This means electricity was significantly dirtier in 2025 than in 2024. www.nrdc.org/press-releas...
@nrdc.org
Latest News Natural gas power grab for Musk AI data center in Memphis sparks environmental justice fight Christian Dennis speaks against xAI's use of gas turbines at their facility during a meeting of the Memphis and Shelby County Air Pollution Control Board on Dec. 15, 2025 (AP Photo/George Walker IV).
“Citizens are fed up with the idea of being polluted, and they do not want that in their community,” said Kermit Moore, president of the Memphis chapter of the NAACP
Read the full story here: news.oilandgaswatch.org/post/natural...
Watch video: youtu.be/wMyKKVbYj40
Repeated delays send a clear signal that climate change has been completely abandoned as an issue that the Trump Administration intends to address.
Delaying greenhouse gas reporting to pave the way for ending it undermines the program’s core purpose of transparency and accountability. This data is essential for tracking pollution and protecting communities.
In Sept. 2025, EPA proposed ending Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program for 46 of 47 source categories. Petroleum was exempt due to a congressional mandate under Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, but that reporting was paused until 2034 under Trump.
Last week, the EPA pushed the greenhouse gas emissions reporting deadline from March 31 to Oct. 30, saying it expects to finalize a proposal by then to eliminate the reporting requirement altogether. www.eenews.net/articles/epa...
Deregulating protections against harmful pesticides is a serious public health threat. Rising cancer rates tied to pesticide exposure, paired with deregulation, weakened science, and laws shielding chemical companies put farmworkers and rural communities at risk.
North Dakota and Georgia recently passed laws limiting lawsuits against pesticide companies, with more states considering similar measures.
Under the Trump Administration, EPA and USDA hired dozens of former pesticide executives and lobbyists who pushed deregulation, while the Department of Health and Human Services altered reports to downplay harms.
Most high-use counties are in the Midwest, and 60% of these counties exceed the national cancer rate. investigatemidwest.org/2026/02/18/p...
Pesticides are increasingly linked to higher cancer rates in farm communities. In Hardin County, Iowa, with about 800 farms, pesticide use is over four times the U.S. average and cancer rates are among the state’s highest.
President Trump’s decision to exempt coke oven operators from the hazardous air pollution rules is not consistent with the Clean Air Act and puts downwind communities at risk.
Monitors in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Alabama found benzene levels from nearly twice to more than 14 times the exposure limit recommended by the American Council of Governmental Industrial Hygienists. storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/2dcf...
Data compiled by EIP shows fenceline monitoring detecting elevated benzene levels at several coke oven facilities.
In 2025, President Trump exempted many steel industry coke ovens from new EPA hazardous air pollution control rules for two years. Jaclyn Brass of the Southern Environmental Law Center called the move unlawful, noting the required monitoring technology already exists and was previously used.
