Imagine If the Trump EPA Cared Enough to REDUCE Our Daily Exposure to Carcinogens

The Environmental Protection Agency has been imbued with a whole bunch of important functions in the more than half century of its existence, from crafting and generally enforcing regulations to codify the environmental and climate legislation passed by Congress, to cleaning up hazardous and contaminated sites, to providing grants for states to pursue their own environmental goals. At least, those are some of the goals presumably written in the EPA’s mission statements. For 50 years or so, that’s basically what the agency did. Now, though, during the second Trump administration? It’s more or less refined its main function into figuring out how it can aid in the emission of more carcinogens into our air on a daily basis.

Yes, the federal agency tasked with making sure we have clean air and potable water has done just about everything within its power to do precisely the opposite during the reign of Donald Trump, most frequently by just ceding its responsibility directly to the President as a god-king, in much the same way that GOP members of Congress have become comfortable doing. Environmental protection, as it turns out, is mostly just a huge bummer. Why get bogged down in dumb statements of principle when you could be signing off on a Donald Trump priority to further enrich a few of his donors?

“The Trump administration has tapped an eye doctor with no background in air pollution science to advise the Environmental Protection Agency on what levels of air pollutants are safe to breathe.”

Sigh.

[image or embed]

— David Roberts (@volts.wtf) Mar 12, 2026 at 4:06 PM

So it is with the EPA’s latest affront, as reported today by The New York Times: The agency proposed a new rule that would weaken regulations on the emission of ethylene oxide gas, a known carcinogen that in 2016 was found to be 60 times more toxic to children than previously believed. The proposed rule would effectively repeal Biden-era regulations that were placed by the EPA on the emission of ethylene oxide gas by the medical industry, as part of a wide-ranging suite of Biden admin initiatives to reduce the rate of cancer deaths in the United States. Take a wild guess if the Trump admin’s EPA, on the other hand, even attempts to make any health-related explanation for why the emission regulations should be rolled back. Hint: They do not. Instead, the EPA statement bizarrely focuses on the necessity of the gas for its main use, medical sterilization.

“The Trump E.P.A. is committed to ensuring lifesaving medical devices remain available for the critical care of America’s children, elderly and all patients without unnecessary exposure to communities,” said Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, in a statement.

Okay, sure, but have you considered that “ensuring lifesaving medical devices remain available” … IS NOT THE JOB OF THE FUCKING EPA??? Once again, Zeldin seems to have become confused about the meaning behind his agency’s acronym–you guys are the Environmental Protection Agency. Just once, maybe, it would be nice to hear you talking about protecting the environment in some way, rather than whether you can save corporations money. Instead, Zeldin just cheerfully flashes a thumbs-up at yet another move that will inevitably result in higher levels of carcinogens entering surrounding areas, but it’s okay, because the medical manufacturing industry is in favor of it. Did no one tell him that he’s at least supposed to pretend to give a shit about the environment? I don’t know why any of this feels the least bit surprising, given that the agency recently gave away its entire right to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases, effectively signing the planet’s death warrant, but there’s still something galling about the administrator of the EPA justifying higher levels of pollution by saying “Well, the people who manufacture the stuff really want to emit this carcinogenic gas, though.” It’s some of the same rationale that the Trump administration has used to force closing coal power plants to remain open, even when the people operating those plants don’t want to keep running them.

The reason this ethylene oxide gas exists at all is the important role it plays in sterilizing medical devices such as syringes or implanted devices like pacemakers, heart valves or catheters. It has long been used to destroy bacteria, viruses and microorganisms on delicate instruments, which are then packaged for clinics and hospitals, and is applied to billions of medical devices every year.

The only issue: Exposure to the gas has been linked in the last decade with a wide variety of negative health effects. Inhalation of ethylene oxide can cause fatigue, nausea and dizziness, while low-dose, long-term exposure can result in damage to the brain and central nervous system and has been shown to increase the risk of cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer. And that’s a problem, because the roughly 90 commercial facilities conducting medical sterilization in the U.S. have more than 2.3 million American residents living within two miles of them, often in lower-income neighborhoods. These are the people who would be at immediate risk of adverse health effects from ethylene oxide exposure.

Toxic ethylene oxide causes cancer, yet the Trump Administration is proposing to gut restrictions on the emissions of these chemicals from commercial sterilizers. EPA must reinstate its EtO emission standards and protect our communities from toxic emissions.

— Senator Dick Durbin (@durbin.senate.gov) Mar 13, 2026 at 1:22 PM

On the other hand, though, the medical device manufacturers are thrilled to not have to deal with burdensome, onerous regulation necessary to make Americans safer and more healthy–can we get RFK Jr. and MAHA to weigh in on this one? Hah, of course not. Scott Whitaker, the president of a medical manufacturing lobbyist group quoted by NYT, exulted in “the EPA’s efforts in listening to and understanding the importance of supplying, safe, sterile med tech without interruption.” The EPA, meanwhile, put out its own press release boasting that the rule it was proposing would save medical manufacturers $43 million per year in compliance costs. Not mentioned: What the fuck any of this has to do with “environmental protection.” Notably, the EPA under the Trump administration has stopped giving a dollar value to the benefits of reducing air pollution, which means it’s purposefully unable to make an economic case for why regulation–its main reason for existing–is good and necessary. It can now apparently only gesture at a corporation’s earnings report and say “Well, at least we did something for them.”

It’s only been a few weeks, meanwhile, since the same Trump EPA relaxed pollution limits in terms of how much toxic mercury coal power plants are allowed to belch into our atmosphere, yet another pet project that RFK Jr. and his MAHA movement had previously sworn to do something about, only to suddenly get very quiet. Somehow, on these types of issues, RFK Jr. persistently proves even more pathetic than the likes of Lee Zeldin, because where Zeldin merely seems to be a naked shill who exists in a perpetual state of boot-lick, RFK Jr. at least appears to believe many of his health credos, only to be forced to ignore or disavow them after each of the dozens of instances where Trump betrays him by embracing the opposite, corporate viewpoint.

Mercury poisoning is back on the menu.

Here’s @jeva.bsky.social with the story of how the Trump administration’s rollback of coal plant emissions regulations could wind up in your tuna:

heatmap.news/climate/trum…

[image or embed]

— Heatmap News (@heatmap.news) Mar 4, 2026 at 1:51 PM

“This administration is systematically looking for ways to let polluters off the hook,” says a succinct statement from Sarah Buckley, the senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “If this abuse of authority is left unchecked, communities will pay the price in higher cancer risks.”

Well, I’ve got some bad news for you: This abuse of authority is being left unchecked. There’s not a check to be found, here. The agency in charge of doing the checking has instead decided to make sure we encounter as many carcinogens as possible on a daily basis. The (mercury) silver lining: At least cancer is more survivable now than ever? I mean sure, it’s also more likely to bankrupt you than ever, but we can’t have everything. This administration will make sure of that.