Trump administration's new slogan: make emissions great again

The slogans "Make America Great Again" and "Make America Healthy Again" are sounding more cynical and hollow every week. Now, with a series of executive orders and other actions by President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, there is one slogan that is becoming unfortunately quite real: "Make America Sick Again."

Trump recently signed four executive orders to bolster coal production, including one directing the Department of Energy to invoke emergency authority to save coal plants at risk of retirement. He claimed that coal plants have been "held captive by Environmental Extremists, Lunatics, Radicals and Thugs ..."

This action came after Zeldin launched a website inviting the nation’s most toxic polluters, including coal plants, to apply for an exemption from nine hazardous air pollution rules. More galling, the EPA offered to guide coal-fired power plants and petrochemical plant operators through the application process.

Polluters wasted no time. The American Chemistry Council and American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association requested a two-year blanket exemption for more than 200 facilities — the country’s worst coal-fired plant polluters — from stringent Biden-era rules barring production of highly potent carcinogenic pollutants including asbestos, lead, chromium, cadmium, dioxin, benzene, and mercury.

In Montana, operators of one of America’s dirtiest coal plants also applied for a free pass: a two-year exemption from the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards established more than a decade ago. This plant throws mercury into the air, and contributes harmful particulate pollution linked to cancer and reproductive and developmental harm.

This is as naked a display of cruel disregard for people's health as we’ve ever seen. More concerning is that air pollution knows no state limits. Toxic pollutants will be carried into places that have no operating coal plants. Among the worst of these pollutants is mercury.

Mercury from coal plants rains down into our water bodies, where it converts to methyl mercury. Fish eat it, and as it moves up the fish food chain it becomes more toxic. When a pregnant woman consumes it, the poison crosses her placental barrier, moves past the blood brain barrier, and lodges in a fetus’ only fatty tissue, the brain. There, it damages the rapidly developing neural architecture. Moreover, babies and toddlers are especially vulnerable to mercury because of how quickly their bodily systems grow. There is no safe amount of mercury for any person at any age.

The normal process of undoing protections from mercury and other airborne pollutants is lengthy, requiring input from scientists, the legal community and the public. The president's pass would take effect in short order, although it isn't clear how state protections will be considered.

Frustratingly, we know that affordable, accessible pollution controls exist and have been working; mercury levels in fish from U.S. waters have been dropping since the mercury standards went into effect. And the fossil fuel sector has been making record profits even while their pollution has been reined in. There is no reasonable case to be made for the presidential waiver.

Like Trump and Zeldin, I’m a parent. I’m also a grandparent. It seems that’s all we have in common. My family is at the heart of who I am and what I do, fighting to secure a healthy future where our children and grandchildren are safe from environmental harms. Stewardship of our planet? Concern for children’s health? Not from them. This administration is Making Emissions Great Again.

This guest essay reflects the views of Dominique Browning, co-founder and director of Moms Clean Air Force and vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund.